THE CHYMIATRIC PRACTICE | OF DR. JOHANN HARTMANN

...very finely, and join or mix with them twice the amount of calcined flints original: "filicum calcinatorum" flints are calcined by being heated to a glow and then extinguished in water several times. Mix them diligently and place them in an earthenware sublimation vessel or a low cucurbit a gourd-shaped glass vessel for sublimation the process of heating a solid until it turns into vapor and then solidifies again. Set this in a sand bath and observe the heat levels, finally using a more vehement fire. A sapphire-blue Luna Silver will ascend, leaving a thick black body at the bottom. Take this black matter out carefully, grind it on a marble slab, and wash it several times with warm water. Afterward, calcine heat to a powder it over a moderate fire in an iron vessel until it turns into a very light powder, constantly stirring it with a spatula as one does with antimony. From this powder, pour spirit of wine distilled alcohol that has been previously distilled from red matter to a height of three or four fingers. Extract the salt by digesting steeping in gentle heat for three or four days in a Bain-Marie water bath in a very tightly closed vessel. When the spirit of wine becomes somewhat milky, pour it off from the dregs. Continue calcining and extracting until no more salt comes forth and the spirit no longer turns milky. Collect all these extractions and draw off the spirit of wine by distilling in a water bath until only about a fourth part remains at the bottom. Place it in a cold location, and the salt of silver will grow or granulate, translucent like crystal. Collect the first salt, then distill the remaining spirit of wine again down to a fourth part to collect more granulated salt, and proceed until all the salt is gathered. Dry all the collected salts carefully and save them. Take two parts of the blue silver previously sublimated and one part of the now-collected salt. Grind them together on marble and distill them through a retort a glass vessel with a long, downward-pointing neck in a sand fire into an oil or a blue Lunar liquor liquid made from silver which may be slightly greenish. Save this collected liquor carefully. The dose is three to four drops in a suitable vehicle a liquid carrier like water or wine for all afflictions of the head, especially for Phrenitis inflammation of the brain, Melancholy depression or low spirits, Hypochondria anxiety about health, Paraphrenitis delirium, Mania insanity, Apoplexy stroke, Paralysis, Epilepsy, lost or weak memory, vertigo dizziness, and Catarrh excessive mucus.

This is a most certain and proven principal remedy for all afflictions of the brain: it has wonderfully restored those bound in chains for many years.

Paracelsus, in his book On the Diseases of the Insane, chapters 5 and 6, writes that the quintessence of antimony is a perfect cure for insanity. Also: Oil of Antimony preserves against all types of madness.

The following Tinctures are of no less efficacy.

II. TINCTURE OF ANTIMONY BY THEOPHRASTUS:

Take two pounds of striated antimony and one pound of calcined Tartar potassium carbonate. Grind them on marble and melt them into a regulus a purified metallic mass, which you should save. Take more calcined Tartar and proceed as above: repeat this three or four times until the regulus is purified. To this, take common salt that has been melted and ground. Pour on pure warm distilled water so the salt dissolves, filter the solution, and solidify it back into salt. Take equal parts of this with the Regulus and triple the weight of Sal Armoniac ammonium chloride. Place it in a well-sealed cucurbit with a capitellum still-head attached. Place it in sand and increase the fire moderately. If you no longer see any moisture, increase the heat, and a yellow Sal Armoniac will ascend to the head. Urge the fire until it glows darkly, and a red, transparent matter like blood will rise to the sides of the glass: save this separately. Wash the Sal Armoniac away from the yellow matter. To the dried red matter, pour the best spirit of wine to a height of two fingers. Let it digest for thirteen days original: "quatuor & 9" likely meaning 4 and 9 days until some of it is dissolved. Pour off the spirit and repeat until nothing more dissolves. Then draw off the spirit from the solutions until dry. Pour warm water over the prepared matter and proceed as with the spirit of wine until it is all dissolved. After drawing it off to dryness, a very red matter remains, which is the tincture. Its use is excellent for delirium, podagra gout, leprosy, dropsy swelling, plague, and fevers. It can also be infused in the previous spirit of wine: two drops may be given even to infants, and one grain in a draft of wine for adults.

II. ANOTHER TINCTURE OF ANTIMONY.

Take two pounds of Antimony and two pounds of crude Mercury. Crush and mix them, then place them in a crucible and melt them gently. While it still glows, use an iron rod to move it into a vessel filled with very hot water. In this way, an elegant sulfur will be extracted in such quantity that the water becomes thick. Let this evaporate gently, and by pouring on more hot water, let the sulfur be completely washed out and separated in a filter. Pour the following vitriolated vinegar over this, which dissolves it radically. Let it stand for eight days, then draw it off to dryness, and it will become a dark-colored sulfur. Pour spirit of honey over this and digest it: this will extract a most beautiful essence. Pour off or filter the spirit and repeat until all is extracted. Draw off the solutions to the consistency of honey. To this, pour spirit of wine, which instantly absorbs its "soul" so that it looks like blood. Filter this and draw it off again to half its volume: a heavy and pleasant tincture remains. The dose is ten or eleven drops in any liquid. It is made in this way.

Take two pounds of the purest Vitriol and seven pounds of Vinegar. Digest for 24 hours. Afterward, distill with a moderate fire, and the most subtle spirits of vitriol and Mercury will ascend together. When you see white spirits coming out during the distillation, stop, for the corrosive spirits are of no use. From Dr. Agricola.

III. In Insanity, Mania, and Melancholy, the blood of a donkey is also praised as a specific Donkey's blood only lasts for one year. In this year of 1615, it restored a certain carpenter the blood is taken from the veins behind the ears into a clean linen cloth that has never been used, then soaked and dried. Note the analogy: the donkey is a melancholic animal. Use: From these cloth strips, take a piece two fingers wide and one inch long. Soak it in a draft of spring water until the color comes out. Give this water to the person suffering from such a disease to drink, once every morning for three full days. As much as possible, encourage a sweat, which this blood helps to bring out.

The perfect cure for Mania is as follows.
1. A Vomitory an emetic to induce vomiting should be given, especially Aqua Benedicta Blessed Water, often an antimonial preparation.
2. After the vomitory, for several days, the patient should take a decoction of Pimpernel Anagallis with purple flowers without any other additions. Wine should not be given in any way.

3. Prepare a lixivium a lye or herbal wash as follows: Take cephalic head-healing herbs with flowers as much as you like. Boil them in spring water. Then for the head: take laurel berries and roots of black hellebore in equal sufficient quantities. Crush them together coarsely and sew them into a long, quilted bag. Boil the bag slightly in the aforementioned wash. Finally, for nine continuous days, take two pounds of that wash each day. Heat it, and with linen cloths soaked in it and lightly squeezed, bathe the shaved head for a full hour. Afterward, apply that bag to the coronal suture the top of the skull while it is still warm, and let the patient rest in bed with the wet cloths. In this way, wonderful things are purged through all the "cleansing vents" original: "emunctoria" of the head, and the bowels also flow a little. From this, some conclude that the use of Hellebore among the Ancients was external rather than internal. In this manner, the "sooty vapors" clinging to the skull and brain are wonderfully dissolved, which truly no other remedies can achieve.

4. Leaves of the Boxwood tree Buxus are recommended for Mania this is not yet fully confirmed, but I have heard it recommended. Twenty-two of its leaves, cut into tiny pieces with a knife, are given in one or two spoonfuls of lavender water on an empty stomach after necessary preparations. If possible, they should provoke a sweat. Repeat this once or twice.

5. The last resort for this disease is the opening of the skull with a Trepan a surgical drill. See below at the end of the chapter on Phrenitis and Paraphrenitis.

Dried and powdered May beetles original: "Bruchi", if given to a person in a "frenzy," will heal them within a short time: for it brings on sleep, and when they wake, they will be better.

V. In Melancholy, the purgatives besides vomitories are:
1. Laxative powder of Dia-sena a senna-based medicine.
2. Prepared hellebore root.
3. The best is the specific purgative of Paracelsus.
For strengthening the brain:
1. Elixir of Property by Paracelsus a classic alchemical medicine made of aloe, myrrh, and saffron.
2. Essence of Saffron extracted with distilled "water of the vine" vine water is made from cut vines, which is then distilled for preservation.
3. Lunar Liquor, mentioned above.
4. Extract of Alkermes a medicinal red berry juice with extract of gum laudanum, adding a small portion of ambergris and musk in the form of pills.
Note: Extract of Alkermes is made neither with spirit of wine nor any other menstruum solvent; only the juice of fragrant apples works best. That extract is preserved longer if spirit of wine is mixed in after the preparation is finished. See the other preparation above under "strengthening remedies."

Extract of Lapis Lazuli. 5. Extract of Lapis Lazuli the blue gemstone. Take as much Lapis Lazuli as you wish. Heat it to a glow six or seven times, extinguishing it each time in spirit of wine. Finally, reduce it to powder. With a decoction of balm melissa, wash away its earthy dross. Reduce it to a very fine powder and digest it with spirit of wine in heat for three or four weeks. Finally, remove the spirit of wine by distillation and carefully save the remainder. The dose of Extract of Lapis Lazuli is one drachm to one scruple for Melancholy, Epilepsy, Vertigo, and Headaches. It is also an excellent medicine for Quartan fever malaria that recurs every fourth day when taken in a suitable liquid.

Take three pounds of calcined Hungarian Vitriol. Put it into a large glass cucurbit that is well-sealed with clay and pour on two or four pounds of Aqua Fortis nitric acid and a little more spring water. The Aqua Fortis will violently rise to action. Place the cucurbit in the furnace, attach the alembic and a receiver, and distill with a slow fire. First, red drops will come, then the green liquor of vitriol will emerge within a quarter of an hour. Pour this green liquor of vitriol back into a cucurbit and draw off the water in a water bath as much as possible. To the vitriol that remains, pour on enough simple common water to dissolve it. From this solution in a sealed cucurbit, draw off the spirits over an open fire. You will receive a liquor as clear and bright as spring water or Mercury, which will reveal itself with its own peculiar sign like striated silver. This crystalline, acidic liquor of vitriol is not corrosive and can be safely taken into the body. If you cast Gold into it in a warm place, it will radically dissolve the gold, joining with the distilled spirit. The dose is six or ten drops. It is an excellent remedy in melancholy, fevers, and other diseases.

Paracelsus places the specific medicine for Melancholy in the flowers of antimony given two, three, or four times for stubborn cases, along with a little Theriaca a complex herbal jam used as an antidote.

For those with melancholy, powder of fumitory the herb Fumaria should be given often, and they are freed. Also, the water and conserve of Elecampane the herb Inula helenium and the Essence of Lesser Celandine help wonderfully in Melancholy and Hypochondria.

Zwinger's Hypochondria recipe. Zwinger’s remedy for Hypochondria:
Take five "opening" roots, half an ounce each;
Bugloss;
Blessed Thistle, one handful each;
A little Wormwood;
Fennel seed, one drachm;
Safflower, half an ounce;
Senna leaves, one ounce;
Agaric;
White Tartar, half an ounce each;
Ginger;
Cinnamon, one drachm each.
Prepare all these for wine: from this, three cups should be taken daily in the morning for three weeks, until the patient feels a certain weakness.
The "Secret Water of Melancholy" is highly recommended by famous physicians for Hypochondria.

Secret Anti-hypochondria Water. Take flowers of borage,
bugloss,
Arabian stoechas, half an ounce each;
rosemary,
marjoram,
balm, one drachm each;
bugloss water, two ounces;
bugloss root, two ounces;
peony, one ounce;
borage and bugloss water, three ounces each;
Syrup of pomegranate, two and a half ounces;
coarse powder of cinnamon,
galangal,
cloves,
saffron,
basil seed, one drachm each.
Pour two pounds of Rhenish wine over this. Let it infuse for two or three days, then distill in a water bath.
An excellent digestive for Hypochondria:
Take one drachm of crystalline Salt of Tartar,
20 grains of Oil of Vitriol or acid of sulfur.
Mix in plum broth or another soup. Repeat for two or three days, then purge with a drink made of medicines that expel bile and phlegm, along with their correctives and gas-relieving herbs.

HYDROPHOBIA.

VII. In Hydrophobia rabies, the most noble medicine is a simple mixture given to the patient so they may recover.

VIII. In cases of Philtres madness caused by love potions: 1. Vomitives are necessary, such as Aqua Benedicta or Croll’s Electuary of Glass of Antimony.
2. Afterward, take a fresh secundina afterbirth the powder of the afterbirth hardly lasts beyond two years. Separate the umbilical vein and the outer skin, and dry them in an oven so they can be powdered. Give this powder to the patient for two continuous days after general treatments, in a dose of one to one and a half scruples, with half an ounce of extract of Theriaca, or with theriacal or sweat-inducing water or spirit. In acute cases, give one drachm with a spoonful or two of watercress juice, and apply the following plaster to the stomach:
Take two drachms of powdered Colocynth bitter apple,
one drachm of Scammony,
one and a half drachms of Masterwort root,
salt gem rock salt,
one drachm each of both types of Hellebore,
half an ounce of Quince bark.
Powder all these coarsely, add elder oil and enough wax.
Make a plaster. Spread a piece on leather and apply it to the stomach. Leave it there for only half an hour, then provoke a sweat. When all this is finished, give the following Electuary a medicinal paste for several days.
Take two ounces each of Balm and St. John’s Wort juice,
half an ounce of Vincetoxicum swallow-wort root,
two drachms of a good Magnet lodestone that attracts iron,
and enough clarified honey.
Make an electuary. The dose is one to one and a half drachms on an empty stomach several times until the illness subsides. One can also give some Tincture of Coral, six to ten grains, every day at noon.