After the same manner we make the Spirit, Oil and Salt of Human Skulls and Bones, Vipers or Serpents.

 

Chapter V.

The Distillation of Harts-Horn.

Take that we call the velvet-head in the springtime, while it is soft. Cut it into little pieces, and put them into a cucurbit; lute on its head and receiver, place it in balneo mariae, and distil a water from it. 

It is accounted good to help forward birth, and to resist malignant humours in fevers. Its dose is from two to four or five ounces.

The Spirit, Volatile Salt and Oil of Harts-Horn.

Take of that which remained in the cucurbit (after the foregoing distillation), or pieces of solid harts-horn, as much as you please. Put them into an earthen retort or iron pot, either of which may be filled two thirds. If it be an iron pot, you must fit to it a copper head with its receiver; if a retort, only a receiver. 

Place them on a naked fire, which increase gradually, so as to keep some fumes in the receiver, but not to force them so violently as to blow off or break it. At last, give the fourth degree, which keep up till no fumes appear; then, let it cool, take off the receiver, and put the oil and spirit into a separating glass. Wash out the salt which remains behind with clear water, and put it to the oil and spirit. 

Let them stand twenty-four hours to separate, and draw out the spirit; put them into a cucurbit, or long-bolled retort, in a gentle heat of sand to rectify. The salt (and some part of the liquor, commonly called spirit) will first ascend; the salt will increase till the neck of the retort and receiver are well charged. When the salt begins to dissolve, take off the receiver, and separate the spirit from the salt, as before directed in that of urine. If after rectification, any oil appears upon the spirit, separate it by a glass and keep the spirit in a phial well stopped. 

(From thirty-two ounces of harts-horn Mr. Lemery obtained an ounce and a half of volatile salt, six ounces of spirit and two ounces of black oil; there remained nineteen ounces of a black coal which, on being calcined, was reduced to sixteen ounces.

Harts-horn yields more or less of these substances according as it is more or less dry. From five hundred-and-three pounds of it, I have obtained sixteen pounds of rough salt, and ninety-two pounds of rough spirit and oil. Two pounds and three ounces of the salt, being rectified with spirit of wine, were reduced to one pound four ouncs and a half.)

It is diaphoretic and diuretic. Its dose is from ten drops to forty or fifty, in any proper vehicle.

After the same manner we make the spirit, oil and salt of human skulls and bones, vipers or serpents, ivory, hoofs, hair, &c. 

If you distil any animal spirit in an iron pot with a copper head, that head ought to be kept only for such use.

If you would have what we call spirit and salt free from any appearance of oil, to one pound of the spirit (after the second rectification) you may put of bones or horns calcined to whiteness four ounces, and distill in a gentle heat of sand. 

(Spirit of harts-horn is most conveniently purified by filtering it though a wet paper (which will retain the oil), and then distilling it once or twice with a gentle heat in clean glass vessels. The distillation should be continued no longer than till the volatile salt which arises is partly dissolved.

Salt of harts-horn and the like substances is commodiously freed from the offensive oil which comes over with it by washing it in spirit of wine, and then subliming it from an equal weight of dry chalk or fuller's earth.)

If you desire all the salt in a dry form separated from the phlegm, put the aforesaid mixture into a matrass or long body with a head and receiver fitted to it, and placed in a very gentle heat of sand; the salt will be elevated into the head and neck of the body or matrass, for the volatile fats of animals are properly their spirits, and what we call spirit is no other than part of the volatile salt dissolved in phlegm which, nevertheless, has the same virtue with the true spirit or volatile fat, but may be given in a greater dose. 

The Aromatic Spirit of Harts-Horn.

Take the spirit, oil and salt of harts-horn after the first distillation, and rectify them. Put them so rectified into a clean long-bolled retort; to each pound of which put two ounces of sal volatile oleosum, and four ounces of spiritus nitri. Shake them well together, and set them in a very gentle heat of sand; lute on a receiver, and continue the fire (not exceeding the second degree) till all is distilled. In the receiver, you will have a spirit which has quitted its empyreuma, and received a penetrating but very pleasant scent. If you rectify once more, its pleasant smell will be augmented. 

(Four pounds of rectified spirit of harts-horn, eight ounces of volatile oily salt, and one pound of sweet spirit of nitre yielded five pounds of aromatic spirit.)