Spagyric Anatomy of Mercury

And although today some Chymicomastiges scourges or detractors of chemistry, stirred by the gadfly of envy, most rabidly bark against Metallic Remedies, even those prepared and composed with singular care and exquisite study, as is their custom, and traduce them before the ignorant masses with the worst calumnies and attack them with bitter insults as being highly poisonous and participants in a deadly quality, and for that reason, with a certain Manlian command a reference to the harsh, unforgiving discipline of the Roman consul Titus Manlius Torquatus, they proscribe and cast them as far as possible from the Republic and the Medical community. It is not, however, for us to have any faith in the futile and trifling words of such vain and insane men, or to lend our ears to them. For since they are clearly rude and ignorant of true chemical preparations, and furthermore, in probing and investigating the nature, virtue, and properties of metallic substances, they have scarcely progressed beyond the bark, and have never even glimpsed or tasted the inner core, it is therefore not to be wondered at that they sometimes behave so childishly and ineptly, and that regarding things unknown, and which far transcend their own understanding, with a preposterous judgment,