how vegetables are separated.

the separation of those things, which grow out of the earth, and are combustible, as fruits, hearbs, flowers, leaves, grasse, roots, woods, &c. is made many wayes.

for first by distillation the flegm is separated from them, then the mercury, then the oyle, then the refine, then the sulphur, and lastly the salt.

all these separations being made according to the spagiricall art many notable, and excellent medicines come from thence, which are to be used as well within, as without the body.

but now seeing idlenesse is so much in request amongst physitians, and all labour and study is turned only to insolency; truly i do not wonder, that all such preparations are every where neglected, and coales sold at so low a price, that if smiths could be so easily without coales in forging, and working their metalls, as physitians are in preparing their medicines, certainly colliers would long since have been brought to extream want.

a reprehension of physitians.

in the mean time i will give to spagiricall physitians their due praise. for they are not given to idlenesse, and sloth, nor goe in a proud habit, or plush and velvet garments, often shewing their rings upon their fingers, or wearing swords with silver hilts by their sides, or fine and gay gloves upon their hands, but diligently follow their labours, sweating whole nights, and dayes by their furnaces.

[pg 93]the commendation of chymists, and how they differ from other physitians.these doe not spend their time abroad for recreation, but take delight in their laboratory. they wear leather garments with a pouch, and apron wherewith they wipe their hands. they put their fingers amongst coales, into clay, and dung, not into gold rings. they are sooty, and black, like smithes, or colliers, and doe not pride themselves with cleane, and beautifull faces. they are not talkative when they come to the sick, neither doe they extoll their medicines: seeing they well know that the artificer must not commend his work, but the work the artificer, and that the sick cannot be cured with fine words.

how many degrees of alchymie there be.

therefore laying aside all these kinds of vanities, they delight to bee busied about the fire, and to learn the degrees of the science of alchymie: of this order are distillation, resolution, putrefaction, extraction, calcination, reverberation, sublimation, fixation, separation, reduction, coagulation, tincture, &c.

but how these separations may bee done by the help of distinct degrees according to the art of alchymie, hath been in generall spoken of already. wherefore it is needlesse here to make repetition.

but to proceed to particulars, and briefly to explaine the practise, you must know that water, spirit, liquor, oyle, &c. cannot bee separated after one and the same processe, out of flowers, hearbes, seeds, leaves, roots, trees, fruits, woods, by the degree of distillation.

for hearbs require one processe, flowers another, seeds another, leaves another, roots another, trees[pg 94] another, the stalkes another, the fruite another, woods another.

the degrees of fire in distillation.

and in this degree of distillation, there are also foure distinct degrees of fire to bee considered.

the first degree of fire in distillation is balneum mari?, this distillation is made in water.

another degree of fire is distillation made in ashes.

the third in sand.

the fourth in a naked fire: as also distillation may bee made by aqua fortis, and other sharp waters.

with what degrees of fire every vegetable is to be distilled.

to the first degree of fire belong, hearbs, flowers, seeds, and such like.

to the second, leaves, fruits, &c.

to the third, roots, and boughes of trees, &c.

to the fourth, wood, and such like.

note, that every one of these must bee beaten small, and bruised before they bee put into the still.

and thus much bee spoken concerning the distillation of waters out of the vegetable substances.

as concerning the seperation and distillation of oyls, the processe is the same as that of water, only some of them are to bee distilled per descensum, and cannot ascend as waters, the processe of these in this case is to bee changed.

but liquors are not separated in distillation as waters, or oyles, but are expressed from their corporeall substances with a presse.

[pg 95]

and here wee must know, that there are some oyles that are pressed out, and separated after the same manner, by a presse as liquors are, and that for this reason, because they should not contract an ill odour from the fire, as otherwise they would doe.

of this order is the oyle of almonds, nuts, hard egges, and the like.

also wee must note, that all oyles, if they be prepared, and coagulated according to the spagiricall art, yeeld a kind of vernish, gumme, amber, or resine, which may bee also called sulphur, and that which remaines in the bottome of the still may bee calcined, and brought to ashes, and from it may bee with warme water alone, the alcali extracted, and separated from it.

the ashes which is left behind is called the dead earth, out of which never any else can bee extracted.