Amalgams, fusions, dissolutions, infusions, and confections

Meaning

Amalgams, fusions, dissolutions, infusions and confections are concrete preparation terms placed under polemical qualifiers: sophistical, fantastic and ridiculous. The adjectives target particular claimed remedies, not every use of these operations throughout the book.

II.4.19 denies that ordinary gold by itself supplies the advertised medicinal or transmuting power. The author's opponents are accused of disguising that insufficiency through elaborate preparations. His own account requires art's assistance and an acquired inseparable tincture, while limiting the projection claim to imperfect metals in a certain quantity. The polemic does not identify all historical products or justify a modern verdict upon every amalgam. It explains why a prestigious starting material and an impressive procedure-name do not, within this argument, prove efficacy.

The English keeps the evaluative adjectives attached to their particular nouns. “Confections” means compounded preparations here, not necessarily sweet food.