Spagyric Anatomy of Mercury

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And although today some Chymicomastiges scourges or detractors of chemistry, stirred by the goad of envy, most rabidly bark against Metallic Remedies—even though they are prepared and arranged with singular care and exquisite study—in their own way, and traduce them before the ignorant masses with the worst calumnies as if they were highly poisonous and participants in a deleterious quality, and harass them with bitter insults, and for this reason, by some Manlian decree referring to the Roman consul Titus Manlius Torquatus, known for his extreme severity, they proscribe and cast them out as far as possible from the Republic and the Medical community. Yet, it is not for us to place faith in the futile and trifling words of such vain and insane men, or to lend our ears to them. For since they are clearly rude and ignorant of true chemical preparations, and furthermore, in the searching and investigating of the nature, virtue, and properties of metallic substances, have scarcely progressed beyond their crust, and have never even glimpsed or tasted the inner nucleus through a lattice a classical idiom for seeing things indirectly or not at all; for that reason it is not to be wondered that they sometimes trifle so childishly, and by passing a preposterous judgment on unknown things that far transcend their capacity,