Chemical-Philosophical Treatise on Natural and Supernatural Things

Pour three times the amount of spirit of wine over this, circulate it in a Pelican a vessel used for continuous distillation, until it has acquired a blood-red color and that sweetness to which no one can compare anything; decant the spirit of wine down to the liquid and pour fresh over it again, repeating this as many times as the entire matter exists translucent to the satiety of sweetness and ruby color. Hence join these matters, pour the selected substance over white calcined tartar, distill strongly in ashes; thus the spirit of wine will remain in the tartar, but the spirit of Mercury is elicited. When you mix this with the spirit of sulphur of the sun and its own salt, and you extract these spirits together, so that they cannot be separated to infinity, you will claim such a thing for yourself, provided it obtains its own limit with gold through solution for a just measure and an established goal, and is promoted in its full maturity to more than perfection, to which nothing can be compared in avoiding diseases and poverty, and in taking large pleasures and goods of the body. This, therefore, is the way by which one can attain the spirit of Mercury, which I unfold as much as has been granted to me by the supreme emperor. You will prudently observe the manual arts of this my labor now manifested, lest the bath be prepared for you in hell instead of for me, through my most faithful admonition, because the true opening of the gate, which grants access to the royal court, is opened by only one key, curing all diseases: dropsy, phthisis, arthritis, stone, falling sickness, Apoplexy, leprosy, and in general, by whatever name they come; this remedy also heals all kinds of venereal disease, and all inveterate ulcers, herpes, syreus a skin ailment, Morphæa, phagedæna, fistulas,