Medicina practica, or, Practical physick shewing the method of curing the most usual diseases happening to humane bodies ... : to which is added, the philosophick works of Hermes Trismegistus, Kalid Persicus, Geber Arabs, Artesius Longævus, Nicholas Flammel, Roger Bachon and George Ripley : all translated out of the best Latin editions into English ... : together with a singular comment upon the first book of Hermes, the most ancient of philosophers : the whole compleated in three books / by William Salmon ...

I. NOW this Operation or Work is a thing of no great Labour to him that knows and understands it; nor is the Matter so dear, (considering how small a quantity does suffice) that it may cause any Man to withdraw his hand from it.

II. It is indeed a Work so short and easie, that it may well be called a Womans Work, and the Play of Chil∣dren.

III. Go to then, my Son, put up thy Supplications to God Almighty; be dilligent in searching the Books of the Learned in this Science; (for one Book openeth another;) think and meditate of these

things profoundly; and a∣void all things which vanish in, or will not endure the Fire, because from those adu∣stible, perishing or consuming things, you can never attain to the perfect matter, which is only found in the digesting of your Water, extracted from Sol and Luna.

IV. For by this Water Colour and Ponderosity or Weight, are infinitely given to the matter; and this Wa∣ter is a white Vapor, which like a Soul, flows through the perfect Bodies, taking wholly from them their blackness, and impurities, uni∣ting the two bodies in one, and increasing their Water.

V. Nor is there any other thing than Azoth, to wit, this our Water, which can take from the perfect bodies of Sol and Luna, their na∣tural Colour, making the red Body white, according to the Disposition thereof.

VI. Now let us speak of the Fire. Our Fire then is Mineral, equal, continuous; it fumes not, unless it be too

much stirred up, participates of Sulphur, and is taken from other things than from the Matter; it over-turns all things, dissolves, congeals, and calcines, and is to be found out by Art, or after an Artificial manner.

VII. It is a compendious thing, gotten without cost or charge, or at least with∣out any great purchase; it is humid, vaporous, digestive, altering, penetrating, sub∣tile, spirituous, not violent, incombustible, circumspect∣ive, continent, and one only thing.

VIII. It is also a Fountain of living Water, which cir∣cumvolveth and contains the place in which the King and Queen bathe themselves; through the whole Work this moist Fire is sufficient; in the beginning, middle, and end, because in it, the whole Art does consist.

IX. This is the natural Fire, which is yet against Nature, not natural, and which burns not; and last∣ly, this Fire is hot, cold, dry,

moist; meditate on these things, and proceed directly, without any thing of a for∣reign Nature.

X. If you understand not these Fires, give ear to what I have yet to say, never as yet written in any book, but drawn from the more ab∣struse and occult Riddles of the Ancients.