Particular from the Universal

5

AS little as I had ever been inclined toward alchemy, so wondrously has the provident Fatherly hand of the great miracle-working God led me some years ago in Italy original: "Welschland" among chemists, and through their discourses on the Universal Medicine, on the coagulation of mercury, on the fixation and coloring original: "Tingierung" of the Moon referring to silver, and the like, caused me to gain desire and love to contemplate these matters further, to attend their operations, to learn one trick or another, and also to look into such books to fathom what the nature of such things might be, and whether they had a foundation.

When at the very beginning a German book on the transformation of metals fell into my hands, which instructed me that mercury could be conquered neither by animal, nor vegetable, nor common mineral substances; but rather its two innate diseases, namely the excessive dropsy and earthly leprosy, must be cured and overcome by a pure sulfur resembling its inner sulfurous nature; then it could indeed be brought to coagulation, fixation, and even to an overpowering, penetrating medicine itself, through which others could also be helped, and especially the blood infected in the same way, to bring its other five brothers to purification and the highest perfection.