A compendious body of chymistry, which will serve as a guide and introduction both for understanding the authors which have treated of the theory of this science in general: and for making the way plain and easie to perform, according to art and method, all operations, which teach the practise of this art, upon animals, vegetables, and minerals, without losing any of the essential vertues contained in them. By N. le Fèbure apothecary in ordinary, and chymical distiller to the King of France, and at present to his Majesty of Great-Britain.

How to prepare the {oil} ☿ of Sennertus, or the Purgative salt of Tartar.

℞ lb ij. of very pure and defecated salt of ☿. and put it in a Glass-Cucurbit; pour upon it 2 pints or lb iiij. of well dephlegmated still'd Vinegar, stir up the whole together until the salt be well dissolved; place your Cucurbit in ashes, and draw the moisture or liquor thereof, which shall come off tastlesse as Rain-water: then continue to distil softly your salt with pints of new distilled Vinegar, and to draw off the Vinegar on ashes so long until you shall find it to come off with the same strength as when you did pour it on; which will happen after you have pro∣ceeded thus, ••bout twenty times: the salt remaining after all this work is very black; but it has no more its lixivial, harsh, biting and urinous taste; but contrariwise a savour not unpleasant, par∣ticipating of saltishnesse and acidity: rhe change which happens in the taste of this Salt proves the truth of what we have asserted above, that the acid substances and salts Alkali, convert one ano∣ther in a neutral substance, which is no more either the one or the other, and yet possesses a more excellent and lesse hurtful vertue, then the bodies out of which they have been compounded, as it

evidently appears in the example of vitriolated Tartar; for the Oyle of Vitriol is a very strong Corrosive, and as an all-con∣suming fire, and the oyle of Tartar is of a sharp, biting and urinous taste, very unpleasant, and neverthelesse the result of both makes a very pleafing Magistery by its acidity, participating no more of the quality of either of the bodies whereof it is compound∣ed, unless it be its penetrating, subtil and dissolving quality: this appears moreover, in that the Vinegar loses all its acidity, and turns to insipid water, and this volatile acid salt of the Vinegar checks and turns the edge and ill taste of the salt of Tartar, to make it be∣come a very good Remedy; towards the last time that you draw off the Vinegar, you must drive this salt with a pretty strong fire, that no moisture may remain with it: dissolve the same in alkohol of wine, and filtrate, to separate from it the blackness it has con∣tracted: then put it in B. M. and draw off again the spirit of Wine from it till it be dry, dissolve, filtrate, and draw again until the 4th. time, but the 5th. time put your Vessel in ashes, and cohobate a∣gain the spirit of Wine thereon, and continue these cohobations, giving still more and more a stronger fire towards the latter end, until the salt becomes white: then put it after in a moist and clean place in a Glass-vessel, and it will easily dissolve into a red Liquor, which is to be filtrated, and part of it kept in Liquor, and the other evaporated into salt, which must be dryed and put into a narrow-neck Viol, very well stopt, if you will prepare it without dissolving. We cannot chuse but recommend this Salt in the highest manner to all Practitioners of Physick, considering the wonderful effects it is able to produce; for it is beyond all Remedies, to open the ob∣structions of all parts of the body, and to evacuate softly all mat∣ters incumbering the functions of Nature; and chiefly in all Chro∣nical diseases and desperate: for it purges softly and without vio∣lence through all the Emunctories: The Dosis is from five grains to twenty if it be dry: or from ten drops to thirty, if dissolved to Liquor; it is to be administred in Chicken broth or Veal boiled with Parsley and Scorzonera Roots, or in white Wine wherein Damask Raisons have been steep'd, with a little quanity of good Cinnamon: the Remedy must be taken fasting in the morning, and if necessity does require it, it may be reiterated about five in the afternoon.