Three Books on Gold

of Cornelius, dying of consumption, freeing her from that very wasting disease in a few days and restoring her to her former health, solely by potable gold, which he had prepared from the discipline of his own uncle, Nicolaus, whose mention will be made in the third book, about which matter I shall have a fuller discourse in those volumes which I have entitled concerning the remedies of poisons, and which are still being hammered out. But let it be that gold is collected, let it also be given for drink for the sake of health; perhaps from there has flowed such nobility of gold, such hunger and madness for acquiring it? When one pound of that metal, dissolved into a humor, can heal not just one King, but a region, and among a thousand myriads of mortals you will scarcely find fifteen men who seek potable gold, and among those there are scarcely two who are learned and skilled in the making of the golden potion.

THAT THE PURITY AND LONGEVITY OF GOLD ARE NOT, PROPERLY SPEAKING, THE CAUSE WHY IT IS HELD IN SUCH ESTEEM BY MEN. CHAPTER V.

NOW if the purity of gold is believed to have brought about its special authority, let us think that there is a fallacy underlying this matter, if indeed it is both dirty and stains perhaps less than other metals, yet it does stain, and it soils those handling it on account of sulfur, which is mixed not only in its quality