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.

EXAMPLE II. Of the Root of Enula Campana.

THis Root deserves very well we should speak of its Prepa∣ration, and make some necessary Observations to instruct thereby the Artist; for, besides, that it hath many vertues, and particular qualities, it will couduce to teach by the same method the Chymical Apothecary, what he is to do according to judge∣ment and experience, in drawing from other Roots, as from this

which is familiar with us, many good remedies to adorn and fur∣nish his shop with, where Physitians may have their recourse when they need it, for the good of their Patients.

We begin by the chusing of the time wherein this Root is to be taken out of the ground, that it may be abundantly furnished, of what we seek in it, which is a volatile spirituous and sulphure∣ous Salt, manifesting it self by taste and odour. This Root then is to be pulled out of the ground in the beginning of the Spring, when it begins to bud and peep out of the Earth; for, if you de∣lay longer, this vertue which is concentrated in the Root, and is the soul of Vegetation, explicates it self and shoots out, to declare the visible Character of its invisible Idea, given unto it by the Creator of Nature, and so doth exhaust it self from its own seminal vertue, to supply the beauty of perfect Vege∣tation.

Having got a good quantity of Root thus qualified, and being yet tender and juicie, so that it may be cut in long slices or round pieces; wash it well, then slit the most likely and most tender Roots in long bits, of the length of the fore-finger and bigness of the small; and cut the other in round pieces of the bigness of a Crown; then put them in a Glass Cucurbite in Sand with a suffici∣ent quantity of clean water, cover it with a Head Limbeck, and fit to the same a Receiver, and exactly lute the Joynts thereof; then give it a gradual fire, & distil it encreasing still the heat, till what in the Vessel begins to boyl, that the Roots may be well boyled. By this Operation many things are performed at once; for, when the Root is so boyled, as to be grown soft to the hand, you may with the remaining decoction in the Cucurbite boyl Sugar to the con∣sistency of a Sugar Rosat, therein to dip the long slices, after they have yeelded their superfluous water upon a Sive turned upside down; and so shall you have a liquid Preserve of Campana, which will keep long: if you boyl further the Sugar, and put the Root once again in it, and dry it in a Stove, you shall have a dry and so∣lid Preserve for such as will use it in travelling. Moreover, you may beat the round pieces, after they are strained, and the liquor expressed in a Marble Mortar, and extract the pulp thereof, which preserve with Sugar boyled in Lozenges, and it will be a very good kind of Preserve also for its peculiar uses; but, which

also will serve as a body, to receive other remedies for the Spleen and Brest, and so you may frame Opiats and Electuaries, which will be very excellent.

But we keep that which is best for the end, which is the spiri∣tuous Water and volatile sulphurous Salt, extracted by distillati∣on, during the boyling of the Root, and which should have been lost, had this decoction been made in an open Kettle or Vessel upon an open fire: and would be a great loss, and argue a defect of judgement, knowledge, and experience in the Artist: for, this di∣stilled Water hath the same taste and smell as the Root, and by consequence, doth possess the best part of her vertue, because it is filled with a very excellent and subtile Salt volatile, which ascends into the Head of the Limbeck under the form of Snow, and cleaves to the sides thereof, when heat causes the Water to penetrate into the very center of the Root, and when this Salt is freed from the mucilagineous substance of its body, it is sublimated by the fires activity into the Limbecks Head; it is true, that it doth not re∣main long there, being immediately dissolved by the aqueous ascending vapours, and carryed along with them into the Recipi∣ent, and this Salt doth communicate to the Water its taste, odour, and efficacy. Let those which deny credit to my discourse, pro∣ceed in the work as I have just now related, and watch exactly when they shall observe the Limbecks Head to be full of white va∣pours, and some substance cleave to the sides of it; let them be provided with another equal Limbeck; then taking away the first, substitute a second in its room; and then will they find them∣selves convicted by their own senses of the truth I have asserted; for, the Spirit of this Salt, shall fill their Nose and Brain immedi∣ately with the genuine smell of the Enula Campana; and, if they apply a little of the sublimated Salt upon the tongue, they will con∣fess, the very Plant not to have even had so subtile, penetrative, and efficacious a taste; so that it would be an irreparable da∣mage, and a gross ignorance, to lose the principal and more vertual part of the subject which is wrought upon.

Those that will make the Extract of the Enula, must dry it a little more then half; then reduce it to a gross Powder, and place it in a double Vessel of the Blind Head with subtile white Wine, to the heigh of four fingers, which they shall digest and extract in

heat of ashes, until the Wine be impregnated of the taste, smell, and yellowish colour of the Root; then shall they draw again what is impregnated, and put new and fresh Wine until it at∣tracts no more; then must be made an expression of the whole, w^ch put in a Cucurbite in B. M. with the requisite precautions, to draw the Spirit and spirituous Water, until the remaining substance hath neither smell nor taste left; clarifie after this what is left in the bottom of the Vessel, and evaporate in an Earthen dish in ashes until it comes to the consistence of an Extract, which shall possess in it self all the vertue of what is fixed in this Root: which is not despicable, because it opens the Belly and strengthens the Stomack. The dosis is from ʒ i. to ℥ ss. and this extract is very efficacious to dissolve and evacuate the fixt, glutinous and tartateous substances lurking in the Ventricle, Spleen, or Brest: but chiefly, it conduces to the cure of Periodical Asthma's, provided you mix some Diapho∣retical Antimony, or Volatile Sal of Karabe or yellow Amber, which will not fail to strengthen the Ventricle, and appease the motions and meteorical swellings of the Spleen, which for the most part do oppress the Diaphragma, one of the chief Instruments and Organs of Respiration, and which causes the oppression of the Stomack, and shortness of breath.

This Extract shall be a rule whereby to prepare those of Vale∣rian Roots, Pellitory of Spain, Carline-thistle, and chiefly Con∣trayerval, which is a Root coming from Peru, and one of the most Soverain remedies against Poyson: but chiefly, in all Pesti∣lential and Malignant Diseases, as Camp and Purpled Feavers, Measels and Small Pox, because it rids potently away the venom of it, and expels dangerous serosities by Sweat and Urin. It is marvellous also in corruptions of the Stomack, and chiefly Worms. There are even some, which believe, that its use is capable to dis∣sipate the charm and poyson of Philters, or amorous Potions. The Dosis of the Root in Powder is from ℈ ss. to ʒ i. in Wine or Cor∣dial, or sudorifick Waters, as that of Regina Prati, Carduus Be∣nedictus, or Mead Sweet, and Sassefras. But the extract of it made by exact operation, and the Spirit drawn by distillation, are with∣out compare much better then the material Body of the Root, and their Dosis less by half. I could not refrain from speaking something in my way concerning this noble Root, knowing that

it is yet concealed to most of the French Apothecaries: and I make no question, but that those which by the order of Physitians shall make use of it, will find those effects to answer the vertues I have attributed unto the same.