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.

CHAP. VI. Of Honey and Wax.

YOU must not think strange, if we reckon Honey among Meteors, since Dew contributes much to its generation; for it thickens after its falling upon Plants, detains and condenses in it self those vapours, which Plants do continually exhale, assisted by the cool of the Night; and the Suns heat doth digest and concoct all into Honey and Wax, which Bees do after∣wards gather, and carry into their Hives, for their own sustenance and nourishment. From this that we have said, the consequence may easily be drawn, why one season of the year doth abound more with Honey then the other. The best Honey is that which is of a whitish yellow, pleasant to the taste and smell, neither too thin nor too thick, compacted in its parts, and easily melting upon the tongue. That which young Bees do yield, is better then old Bees Honey. From it is extracted a Water, an Oyl, a Spirit, Salt, and Tincture. From Wax also, which is an Em∣plastick cleaving substance, is extracted the Phlegm, Spirit, Butter, Oyl, and a very small proportion of Flowers, which are nothing else but the volatile Salt of this Compound.

The manner of Extracting the Principles of Honey.

TAke a quantity of Honey, and put it in a Glass Vessel, white Earth, or Stone Bottle Earth, and put above it about

ii ℥ of Hemp, or Flax-Tow, to hinder the Honey from raising into the head by its ebullition; cover the Glass or Vessel with its head or Limbeck, and lute or stop well the joynts with two bands or fillets of Paper, spread over with Pap made with flower and water boyled together; put your Cucurbite or Vessel in sand, and give a slow fire at first, to extract only the Water by this first degree of heat; then change your Receiver and increase the fire, which shall drive up a second water, of a yellowish colour, con∣taining the Spirit; and increasing yet one degree more, you shall have a red Spirit with its Oyl, which must be separated by the Funnel, and the Spirit rectified. That which remains in the bot∣tom, calcine in a Reverberatory Furnace, to extract the Salt thereof with its own Phlegm, and then evaporate either to a total drought, or to a skin only, to get Crystals in a cool place.

Both these Waters of Honey, viz. the Clear and the Yellow, are very usefull to cleanse and clear the Eyes, take away films, spots, or blemishes; to cause Hair to grow: the Spirit is a great remover of Obstructions; for, being taken from fifteen to twenty drops, in Aperitive Waters, or decoction of Nettle-roots and Burdock, it opens all Obstructions, provokes Urine, and drives away Gravel, clammy and viscous humours in the Reins and Bladder. The Oyl being circulated in Spirit of Wine twenty or thirty dayes, becomes very sweet and pleasant; it conduces won∣derfully to the cure of Gun-shots, and to cleanse corroding and cancerous Ulcers: It is a singular remedy to appease the pain of the Gout; as also to take away the spots of the face, being mixt with a little Oyl of Camphire.

To make Hydromel or Mead, and the Vinegar of Honey.

TAke a q. of very good Honey, and viii p. of depurated Rain-water, or River-water, left some dayes in a Vessel, to defecate and cleanse it self from Impurities; then let it boyl softly to the consumption of one half part, being first exactly skimmed. This remaining Liquor put in a Cask, and upon every 30 pints of Liquor put ℥ i. of Salt of Tartar, and ℥ ii. of the Tincture of the same Salt to help Fermentation, which within the Philsophical

Moneth, which is 40 dayes, will be compleated: But you are to note, that every day the Cask must be filled anew, to repair what the fermenting Spirit drives away: that done, put the Cask in a Cellar and stop it well: and this may be used for a very good drink, both by healthfull and crasie bodies.

But when you will make Vinegar, put, in the Vessel wherein you have boyled your Honey and Water to a half consumption, as you are directed above, a knot containing the pounded seeds of _____ _____ grossely beaten, and leave the Cask in a warm room if it be Winter, or expose it to the Suns heat if Summer, untill the Liquor hath done boyling and fermenting; and it will by degrees and slowly turn into very good Vinegar; which may be distilled as the other uses to be. It is an excellent Menstruum for the dissolving of Peble stones, and all others, though not calcined before; and this is that Vinegar which Quercetanus doth call in his writings, the Philosophical Vinegar. You are to note also, that the same Author doth often make mention of Ho∣ney, in his Works, under the notion of Dew, or Heavenly Manna.

To make the Tincture of Honey.

THis Tincture is not one of the meanest remedies, extracted out of this Meteor; either by reason of the peculiar vertues of the Mixt, or that of the Menstruum, used to extract the fa∣culties of this Heavenly Manna, much more full of efficacy, then those have imagined which fancy that it is easily converted into Choler; led thereto by that false Axiom of their School, which they take for a granted truth, that Omnia dulcia facilè bilescunt, not apprehending, that these alterations of temper, are not wrought in us by the mixture of humors, but that all is performed by the several fermentations, which have their rise and original in the Ventricle, and that the Leaven or Ferment is either health∣full or sickly, according to the good or evil Idea's, which the spirit of Life hidden in Man, hath conceived. To return then to our matter, we say, that Honey is one of the sublunary sub∣stances that hath more in it self of Universal Spirit, and that none is fitter to be reduced to the nature of that general Agent

of the World, to perform thereby wonderfull remedies in Phy∣sick; sick; provided we preserve in it something of its specification, whereby it may become usefull and sensible.

Choose then the best and purest Honey you can finde, accor∣ding to the notes we have already given, and mix one part of it with 3 p. of the cleanliest and purest Sand you can meet with, beating all together in a Mo••tar, and reducing it to a mass, whereof make pellets of a convenient bigness, to pass through the neck of a Matrass: thus being put in, powre upon spirit of Wine well rectified, and let it rise over the matter three or four fingers; then let another Matrass be inserted in the neck or Orifice of the first, about two fingers deep, and lute the joynts of the two Vessels, with two fillets of Neat or Swines Bladder, dipt in white of Eggs, reduced to water by frequent agitation; (note this manner of luting the joynts or commissures of Vessels, for all the Operations which from henceforth shall be described.) Then tie your Matrass to the Cover of your B. M. and suspend to the vapour, and so digest the Honey with its Monstruum, untill the spirit of Wine be well impregnated, tincted, and loaded, with the internal Sulphur of this Mixt, which the Sp. V. will attract, by reason of the analogy which is between it and this Principle. This being done, leave the Vessels to cool, then open them, and filter the tincture through gray Paper, and having powred it in a small glass Body or Cucurbit covered with its head, luted the joynts very exactly, and adapted a fitting Receiver, draw by distillation half of the Alkohol of Wine, with a very soft heat of the B. M. and the Bath being cooled, open your Vessels, and keep choysely the remaining Tincture, in a glass Viol, with a narrow mouth, and well stopt with Cork first seasoned in melted Wax, to stop the porosities of it, and cover it with a doubled wet Bladder and a Paper, that nothing of the vertue of this Re∣medy may exhale or vapour away, by reason of the great subtilty of its parts, to use when you have occasion.

The use of this tincture is almost heavenly, in all affections of the Breast or Thorax, wherein slimy and viscous serosities, ga∣thered in the hollow or capacity or cavity of it, are the cause: For it hath a subtilizing and dissolving vertue, sufficiently strength∣ning the Patient to expell by spotting, what he findes obstructive

and cumbersome, or to drive away by urine, sweating, or insensible transpiration, which are the noblest and most ordinary effects of such remedies as come neerest to the Universal Medicine. Such rare Medicaments do prove the truth of this celebrated Maxim, that Natura corroborata, est omnium morborum Medicatrix. The The Dosis of this Tincture is from one fourth part of a spoonfull, to a whole, for the more advanced in age; and from five to twen∣ty drops for Children: It may be given alone, or mixt in de∣coctions, or specifical waters appropriated to the disease; as are the waters of Colts-foot flower, the roots of butter-Burre, the white and odoriferous Hore-hound, Juniper berries, and roots of Enula; because all these simples do abound with a penetrating and volatile spirit: it may also be exhibited in broths, or the ordinary drink of the Patient.

To extract the Oyl of Wax.

FRom Wax, as also from many other mixt Bodies, may be extracted, a Phlegm, an acid or sharp Spirit, an Oyl, and the Flowers which we have said to be its volatile Salt. But as these substances (the Oyl excepted) have no great use in Phy∣sick, we shall not insist here upon their descriptions; contenting our selves to impart here an usefull, easie and compendious way of making the Oyl of Wax.

Take lb i. of yellow, well-smelling, and depurated Wax; melt it with a gentle heat in a Copper skillet, shutting with a close Cover; and if you have a Fire already kindled for some other purpose, take red burning Coals, and extinguish them the one after the other in the melted Wax, untill they are sufficient∣ly imbibed, and well filled with it: and thus continue untill all the Wax be thus consumed, having a special care in the mean while to cover close the Skillet every time you throw the Coals in it, least the Wax should take fire; then pound the Coals to an indifferently gross powder, and mix with equal weight of de∣crepitated Salt; and having put this mixture in a glass Retort, leaving the third part empty, place it upon a Sand-furnace, with a sufficiently ample Receiver fitted to the neck of it, and lute exactly the joynts with Bladder and whites of Eggs, then having

dryed it leasurely, give fire to it by degrees, untill the vapours begin to cease of their own accord, which ever happens within the space of fifteen or twenty hours, and ••••ll being setled and cooled, separate the Oyl which is yet gross and thick from the aqueous Liquor, and keep some part of it in that consistency, to use outwardly, but rectifie the rest in a low Cucurbite, and mingle with 3 or 4 lb of White-wine, and ℥ iv. of Salt of Tartar, di∣stilling it with all the care and exactness which is requisite to a very subtile and penetrating Oyl, upon Ashes: Thus shall you have the Oyl of Wax, as clear, fluent and penetrating as the Sp. V. endowed with many peculiar vertues, both for internal and external griefs. It is exhibited inwardly in some Diuretick Liquor, from 6 to 12 drops, in retentions of Urine; and for the same purpose may also be given in Parsly-water, and Sassafras∣wood-water, or decoction, as also of Lignum Nephriticum. Out∣wardly applyed, it is very resolutive, which makes it of great efficacy to dissolve all schirrhous tumours and swellings; good also to restore motion to Paralytical and contracted Members, and cure all cold aches in the nervous and sinewous parts of the body; it is also used with very good success against Sciatica, and cold Gout in hand or feet. The Butter or gross Oyl, which you kept unrectified, cures the chaps of the lips caused by cold, and cica∣trizes and heals again the soreness or chaps in the Nipple. The aqueous Liquor or Phlegm being rectified, you shall finde a fourth part to be a spirit of Salt, not of less vertue then that which is distilled alone.