Long Life, Short Art

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3rd, that it is entirely volatile, appearing as smoke, departing in the fire at a degree of heat not much greater than that of boiling water. 4th, that it is not at all ductile under the hammer, but divisible into minimal parts with small force, and otherwise, by no known cold (if you except a case recently inserted into the news), is it condensed into a solid mass. 5th, that it is dissolved by aqua fortis and aqua regia. From this mineral sycophant, various offspring are born: sweet Mercury, white precipitate, red, green, yellow, and black. Red diaphoretic; but since these and more appear in the dispensatories, I will present below another white diaphoretic of singular invention and use, whose preparation is this:

Take of English Tin and quick Mercury, half an ounce each; make an amalgam and place it in a glass retort. Pour on it acidic vinegar original: "♁ acidus" to the height of four fingers, and immediately close it with an alembic. After a few hours, draw off the liquor by distillation with sufficient fire to the dryness of the material. To this white material remaining at the bottom, pour fixed niter liquor to the height of two fingers in the glass for eight hours. Afterward, pour out the liquor and sweeten the powder very well with rainwater. The dried material should be sprinkled with the best spirit of wine in a stone mortar, stirring always with a wooden pestle twelve times, and the powder should be kept for use.

§. XIII.

The thick, heavy, inflammable juice of the poppy, of a gummy-resinous nature, of an obscure brown color, and of a heavy, head-striking odor, is called opium. It is brought to us from Smyrna, Alexandria, and Aleppo, collected into lumps or cakes, and kept in shops. From this, various preparations appear: Caesar's Laudanum, Extract; the liquid Laudanum of Sydenham; diuretic Laudanum, hysterical, etc., an invention clearly to be most highly esteemed. Whence a certain physician rightly said, "Without niter and opium, I do not wish to be a physician."

§. XIV.

Regarding hemlock, once an infamous and poisonous herb, by the counsel of the Aesculapius of our time, the Magnificent Boerhaave, the Proto-Physician of the Most August [Court] de Störck, has set out to prepare a health-giving medicine.