DEDICATION.

For a good and considerable time now, many excellent and highly learned people have diligently pursued this Spagyric ArtThe term "Spagyric" refers to alchemical techniques—specifically the process of separating, purifying, and then recombining the essential components of a substance to create medicine., publicly and in writing commending, lauding, and highly praising it for its high and excellent utility in medicine and the original: cura morborum cure of diseases—to say nothing of the transmutation of metals. Especially as the highly intelligent and well-experienced men Conradus Chunradi (of pious memory) and Joachim Tancke, Doctors of Medicine in Leipzig, have earned great merit regarding this noble art. They have demonstrated its original: Veritatem, Antiquitatem und Utilitatē truth, antiquity, and utility through excellent commendations and other writings, and by publishing many good and select chemical booklets by Bernhard Referring to Bernhard of Trevisan, a legendary 15th-century alchemist. and other excellent philosophers. Likewise, Johannes Thölde, a Hessian and citizen of Frankenhausen, has praised it beyond measure by bringing to light the extraordinary treatises of Brother Basilius Valentinus of the Benedictine Order. I therefore consider it quite unnecessary at this time to trouble Your Imperial Majesty with further praise of this noble art, or to foist, as it were, cabbage twice-cookedoriginal: Cramben bis coctam; a classical Latin proverb for a tedious repetition of something already well-known. upon Your Imperial Majesty’s royal table. I will therefore let the matter rest for now with the aforementioned Doctors’ and others' original: Scriptis commendatitiis letters of recommendation concerning this heavenly, high art and its usefulness.