Antimonial Pharmacy

hood, virtue & Vice,
Wisdom, and Ignorance;
therefore, having I here in
this volume to dispute,
and make known the
truth (with the wisdom
of many most Learned Au-
thors) of the very great
Virtue Italian: "Virtù." In this context, the word carries a double meaning: it refers to moral excellence and also to the "potency" or medicinal power inherent in a substance. of the great Ath-
lete of Medicine original: "Athleta della Medicina." A common metaphor in alchemical literature, portraying powerful chemical substances as heroic champions or "athletes" capable of wrestling away disease., An-
timony Antimony: a metallic element that was the center of a massive medical controversy in the 17th century; while traditionalists viewed it as a poison, "chemical" doctors saw it as a supreme purifier., making it tri-
umph with Mercury Mercury: along with sulfur and salt, mercury was considered one of the three primary principles of all matter; here it is presented as a medicinal partner to antimony. in
spite of some of their
detractors, making
known their treacherous
ignorance, and the de-
testable vice of the lie
uttered by them
against those substances;
and thus being
poor Virtue arrived
in the present centuries at
such extreme Misery that it does not