The Beginner’s Training

PARACELSUS IN THE BOOK ON THE TINCTURE OF THE PHILOSOPHERS

CHAPTER I.

Decorative woodcut initial 'D' featuring scrolled floral and foliate patterns within a square border. This ornate letter 'D' marks the beginning of the introductory text by Paracelsus, a common practice in early modern printing to signal the start of a major section.

First, one must learn digestions the process of heating a substance gently over a long period, distillations, sublimations heating a solid until it becomes a vapor and then solidifies again, reverberations applying intense heat reflected back onto a substance, extractions, solutions, coagulations, fermentations, fixations making a volatile substance stable so it can withstand fire, and everything required as equipment for this work must be understood through practical use. This includes glassware, cucurbits gourd-shaped boiling flasks, circulatory vessels, vessels of Hermes hermetically sealed containers, earthenware vessels, baths such as sand or water baths for indirect heating, wind furnaces, reverberatory furnaces, and other similar items, as well as marble slabs, coals, and tongs. Only in this way will you finally be able to make progress in alchemy and medicine. However, as long as you cling to your fictitious little books through fantasy and mere opinion, you will be neither fit nor predestined for any of these things.

Vocabulary from the text:
Paracelsus: A famous 16th-century Swiss physician and alchemist who advocated for the use of minerals and chemicals in medicine.
Alchemy (Alchymia): The medieval forerunner of chemistry, concerned with the transformation of matter.
Medicine (medicina): In this context, the preparation of chemical remedies.
Tyrocinium: A Latin term meaning "apprenticeship" or "basic training," indicating this work is an introductory manual.