Secrets of the Secrets of Ramon Llull and Hermes the Philosophers

is in the spices, and with this ingenuity the virtue of spices and herbs is resolved from their substance, without the adding of substance. But if it is resolved or taken in another way, part of its virtue is dissipated, as in the decoction of syrups, powders, and electuaries. And that this operation is true, it is evident in white helleborus hellebore, which by its nature has to provoke vomiting. And if it stays in wine for a natural day, its vomitive virtue will be resolved, and it will operate what the substance and the virtue resolved in wine would have done, and in a certain cure which cures all wounds without tension or 'without bandages' and makes it carry pus until it is necessary, then it heals with a perfect healing; if powder is taken, and placed in a small bag and stays for one day in wine, that wine taken cures all wounds, as in this and in many other things we have experienced in our time. But the ancient wise men concealed this sublime work of medicines and emptied all the books of the art from this intention.

CHAPTER THIRD

Whoever wishes to retard old age and observe youth, otherwise health, let him study with all his intention to use things