Decoction

Meaning

Decoction is the heat-mediated elaboration through which the aqueous seed becomes generative once its innate heat is drawn into activity. The assertion that generation occurs by decoction places cooking or maturation within Nature’s causal work; it does not by itself name a medicinal drink.

Elsewhere moderate continuous decoction carries matter gradually through intermediate states, while the philosophical subject’s colours are said to appear during its decoction. The sense is consequently wider than a household preparation or a single named laboratory operation. The lexicon preserves that generative office without constructing a schedule or equating every use with the oat-root decoction in the final medical example.