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 OUR dissolving Water therefore carries with it a great Tincture, and a great melting or dissolving;

because that when it feels the vulgar Fire, if there be in it the pure or fine bodies of Sol or Luna, it immedi∣ately melts them, and con∣verts them into its white Substance, such as it self is, and gives to the Body co∣lour, weight, and tincture.

II. In it also is a power of liquifying or melting all things that can be melted or dissolved; it is a Water ponderous, viscous, precious, and worthy to be esteemed, resolving all crude Bodies into their prima Materia, or first Matter, viz. into Earth and a viscous Pouder; that is, into Sulphur, and Argen∣tum vivum.

III. If therefore you put into this Water, Leaves, Fi∣lings, or Calx of any Metal, and set it in a gentle Heat for a time, the whole will be dissolved, and converted into a viscous Water, or white Oil, as aforesaid.

IV. Thus it mollifies the Body, and prepares it for fusion and liquesaction; yea, it makes all things fusible,

viz. Stones and Metals, and afterwards gives them Spirit and Life.

V. And it dissolves all things with an admirable so∣lution, transmuting the per∣fect Body into a sufible Me∣dicine, melting, or liquify∣ing, moreover fixing, and augmenting the weight and colour.

VI. Work therefore with it, and you shall obtain from it what you desire, for it is the Spirit and Soul of Sol and Luna; it is the Oyl, the dissolving Water, the Foun∣tain, the Balneum Mariae, the praeternatural Fire, the moist Fire, the secret, hid∣den and invisible Fire.

VII. It is also the most acrid Vinegar, concerning which an ancient Philoso∣pher saith, I bosought the Lord, and He shewed me a pure clear Water, which I knew to be the pure Vi∣negar, altering, penetra∣ting and digesting.

VIII. I say a penetrating Vinegar, and the moving

Instrument for putrifying, resolving and reducing Gold or Silver into their Prima materia or first matter.

IX. And it is the only agent in the Universe, which in this Art is able to rein∣crudate Metallick Bodies with the conservation of their Species.

X. It is therefore the only apt and natural medium, by which we ought to resolve the perfect Bodies of Sol and Luna, by a wonderful and solemn dissolution, with the conservation of the spe∣cies, and without any de∣struction, unless it be to a new, more noble, and bet∣ter form or generation, viz. into the perfect Philosophers Stone, which is their won∣derful Secret and Arcanum.

XI. Now this Water is a certain middle substance, clear as fine Silver, which ought to receive the Tin∣ctures of Sol and Luna, so as they may be congealed and changed into a white and living Earth.

XII. For this water needs the perfect bodies, that with them after the dissolution, it may be congealed, fixed, and coagulated into a white Earth.

XIII. But their solution, is also their coagulation, for they have one and the same operation, because one is not dissolved, but the other is congealed: Nor is there any other water which can dissolve the Bodies, but that which abideth with them in the matter and the form.

XIV. It cannot be per∣manent unless it be of the nature of the other Bodies, that they may be made one.

XV. When therefore you see the water coagulate it self with the Bodies that be dissolved therein; be assu∣red that thy knowledge, way of working, and the work it self are true and Philosophick, and that you have done rightly according to art.