Put Six Pounds of Human Skulls into a Retort.

 

I shall here, in this third part, speak only of those animals and such parts of them as we make use of in chemistry, as urine, blood, bones, horns, hoofs, &c. Also serpents, vipers, woodlice, pismires, &c.

And first,

Chapter I.

Elixir Cranii Humani.

Put six pounds of human skulls (grossly powdered) into a retort; lute it, and place it in an open furnace; give a degree of fire every two hours, till no fumes are seen in the receiver. Then, let all cool, and take out the spirit, oil and salt; the salt that adheres to the receiver, wash off with water and put it to the other. Return the whole into a clean retort, and rectify the spirit, oil and salt in a gentle sand-heat, so often (always in clean retorts) till they perfectly unite. 

Put four ounces of this united spirit, oil and salt into a retort (or cucurbit) with one pound of rectified spirit of wine; again, rectify all in a gentle heat till they are united (which five or six cohobations will perform). Of this, put one pound into a matrass with two ounces of the moss of human skulls; let them digest into a glass, and stop it well. 

It is a noble medicine against madness, convulsions and hysteric fits. It operates by sweat and urine, and the dose is from five to one hundred drops. 

Distillation of Urine.

Take of the urine of sound young men, newly made, as much as you please. Put it into an iron kettle, and evaporate it to the consumption of one half in a gentle heat. Put the remainder into a stone bottle; stop it very close, and set it by for about two months, then open the bottle, and if you find the matter smell quick and strong, put it into a large glass retort. Lute on a receiver, and give a fire of the first degree for an hour, then increase it to the second, which will raise the salt and spirit; continue that degree, till you find the salt begin to dissolve, and let all cool.

Then, take off the receiver, and put all you find there into a cucurbit (a long-bolled retort is a more convenient instrument than a cucurbit); set it in sand, lute on its head and receiver, and give a gentle heat at first, and the salt and some part of the phlegm, which we call spirit, will rise. Continue the fire, till you see the head well-lined with salt which, when you perceive to decrease, let all cool, and put what you find in the receiver into a phial well stopped. 

It is diaphoretic and diuretic, and given in intermitting and malignant fevers. Its dose is from five to fifty drops. 

As to the evaporation, observe to do it by a gentle heat, lest some of the volatile salt by too great an agitation should fly before the fermentation. The use of this evaporation is to separate the phlegm, which would take up much room to no purpose.

If you desire the salt and spirit apart, after the rectification, pour off the spirit into a phial and tie a double paper over the mouth of the receiver; set it downwards, and let the salt drain till it is dry, then scrape it off from the sides with a crooked hoop-stick. Put it into a phial and stop it close.

If you desire yet a greater quantity of the salt, put both it and the spirit together into a long body, lute on the head and receiver, and let it stand in a digesting heat of sand, that the salt may gently sublime. 

I have made the spirit of urine without fermentation by evaporating to the consistence of a syrup, and giving it gradual fire to the third and fourth degree. In this operation the phlegm comes first, and then some volatile salt; afterwards more colatile salt will appear in white fumes with the spirit, and a little stinking oil which must be separated from the salt and spirit before rectification. After one rectification you may separate the volatile salt and spirit, as in the former; but I do not esteem it of equal goodness with the fermented spirit, because all the salt of urine is volatized by the fermentation. 

In the caput mortuum, as some call it, you will find a strong lixivial salt, and if the volatilizing fixed or lixivious salts, deserves that encomium the most celebrated authors give, the salt of fermented urine must be the best medicine; and indeed, there is a perceptible difference betwixt them, the fermented spirit and salt being more pleasant and penetrating both in smell and taste than the unfermented.