Spirit of wine, antimony, and coral

Meaning

Spirit of wine, antimony and coral occur in a comparison of tinctures attributed to Paracelsus. They are not assembled into a preparation. Nuysement reports striking powers and says Paracelsus seems to give preference to mercury’s tincture, then adds his own insistence that the mercury is not the ordinary kind.

The tentative “seems” and the distinction of voices prevent the report from becoming an authenticated recipe or an unqualified statement of Paracelsus’s doctrine. The ordinary substances’ names remain useful lookup routes, but neither their presence nor the praise of tincture establishes a safe medicinal use or a modern identification for the sages’ mercury.