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Take of the best purified Mercury ℥iij. and put it into a Glass made on purpose (which be∣ing * 1.1 somewhat like an Hour-glass, consists of a double bottom running out in the shape of a Top; but is broad and plain in both, as in the middle narrow, and both a Nozel with a very streight orifice, reaching from one bottom into the belly of it) and place this Vessel in an Oven of Sand at equal poize upon a fire that must at first be slow, though afterward quicker, till part of the Mercury turns to an ash-coloured Powder, and the other part being raised into the upper bottom, sticks there like Quicksilver; then turning the Vessel upside down, put the upper bottom into the Sand, and so turn the Glass for se∣veral times till all the Mercury turns to Powder, which, having broken the Glass, you must gather together, and wash in fair water. The Dose is gr. iv. to v. or vj. It al∣most ever causes vomiting, and doth not work at all by spitting.
The reason of this procedure seems to be, in that the emanation or streaming forth of a continual fire, first loosens the body of the Mercury, by degrees dissolves the par∣ticles * 1.2 thereof, and at last separates them from each other, so that they mutually part, and being broken as it were into small crums, remain distinct; from whence it hap∣pens, that the most active parts, to wit, the saline chiefly, and the sulphureous ones, being set at liberty, cause great commotions in a Mans Body by vellicating the fibres and boiling up with the Salts: but yet this Precipitate works less upon the Salts which are in the bloud, than Mercury praecipitated with Salts onely; because this latter very easily causes spitting, which the former doth not at all. As Mercury, so also some other Mineral Bodies, as Lead, Tin, Antimony, and Iron, are usually calcined into a Powder or a Crocus by the constant heat of fire.