The curious distillatory, or, The art of distilling coloured liquors, spirits, oyls, &c. from vegitables, animals, minerals and metals ... containing many experiments ... relating to the production of colours, consistence and heat ... : together with several experiments upon the blood (and its serum) of diseased persons, with divers other collateral experiments / written originally in Latin by Jo. Sigis. Elsholt ; put into English by T.S. ...

CHAP. VII.

Of Veronica or Fluellin.

BUt some body will answer; Ah! but these are fallacies. Tis true. But you must know, that these ridiculous things are also necessary, lest you be deceived your self, and that you may be able to detect the fraud of others. Aristotles Sentence concerning a wise man is this: Qui ipse non mentitur, & alium mentientem facile deprehendit. Who is not false himself, and can easily discover the falshood of others. But now passing over crafty cheats, let us proceed to Operations, which are Genuine, and agreable to truth.

Veronica, or Fluellin, is a Plant known to all the Apothecaries, and its Vertues both as to the Breast, and Spleen; also its curing of Vlcers, and Wounds, are much cryed up to the Sick. Whether it were known to the Antient Writers both Greek and Latin, is uncertain: Although Caesalpinus refers it to Diascorides, Myosotida or Mous∣eare. lib. 11. cap. 214. others make it another Plant. The kinds of it are com∣monly

(by Herbalists) recorded to be eight: amongst which the most usual is that which by Caspar Bauhinus is called Veronica Mas, supina & vulgatissima. The Male Fluellin the Superior, and most common. There is prepared from it a Syrup, Conserve, Salt, Wine, and also distilled Water: of the former nothing, but concerning the Wine, and the Water, take a couple of Observations.

Experiment the first.

Take fresh Veronica, when it begins to be in the Flower, cut it, and sprinkling it with a little Water, cast it into a Glass Body, and applying the like Alimbeck to it distil it by Balneo Mariae, or Water. So the Water which distills, will not be white and limpid like to other Waters, but Greenish. This Greeness though it be not constant, yet it will last at least three months, and afterwards it will begin to vanish by degrees.

Experiment the second.

If in the place of Fountain Water you put on Wine, and draw it the same way by

Balneo, you will then also have a Green Liquor, but in which the Greenness is much deeper, and will also continue for a year, and longer.

Truly this neat Tincture which Veronica brings over the Alimbeck with it, seems to be a Note, or Character of the efficacy, which is indulged to that Plant before a thousand others.

Let no Body here accuse Copper for gi∣ving this Tincture: for if the distillation be made in Glass Vessels, the Water of Veroni∣ca will be equally Green. The latter way by Glasses is best to perform it, and by that means it will clearly evidence that this Greenness doth not proceed from Copper, but springs only from the peculiar Nature of the Plant.

But concerning Vegetable Waters di∣stilled by Copper Vessels not exactly Tyn'd, we have observed this; if they contain any thing of Copper, by putting in a drop, or two of the Salt Spirit of Sal Armoniack, they will become Milky or White; but if they have no Copper, they will remain clear. However the observation of Otto Tacheni∣us (an excellent Physitian of Venice) may seem to look otherways, concerning Rose-Water distilled by a Copper-Vessel; which

he proposeth, chap. 19. Hippocr. Chymic. to this sence: It doth eat off certain Atoms from the Copper, which are invisibly mixed with the Water. Would you see the Copper? drop into the Water some drops of an Vrinous Alca∣ly, and by it the whole Water will grow green∣ish: because the acidity of the Rose Water, doth with more greediness snatch to it self the light, and more like it self Alcaly than the Metal, which therefore by degrees falls Green to the Bottom.

Whilst I am writing this a certain not in∣expert Man in the Art of distillation doth affirm, that the Water of Sage, and also of Rosemary, will be Green, as well as that of Veronica, if they be managed with a cer∣tain dexterity, and moderate swiftness. The truth of which Experience will deter∣mine.