"Summus atque felicissimus salium": The medical relevance of the liquor alkahest

Bulletin of the History of Medicine

Volumn 76, Issue 1, 2002, Pages 1-29

  Porto, Paulo A ^a  

^a NONE

Author keywords

Alkahest; Chemical philosophy; Iatrochemistry; J. B. van Helmont; Preparation of medicines; Seventeenth century chemistry; Seventeenth century medicine

Indexed keywords

DRUG; SOLVENT;

ARTICLE; CHEMISTRY; HISTORY;

ALCHEMY; HISTORY, 17TH CENTURY; HISTORY, MEDIEVAL; PHARMACEUTICAL PREPARATIONS; SOLVENTS;

EID: 0036515891     PISSN: 00075140     EISSN: None     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: None     Document Type: Review

References (198)

1. Throughout this paper, I use the terms chymistry, chymical, and chymists in the sense suggested by Lawrence Principe and William Newman in their recent paper "Alchemy vs. Chemistry: The Etymological Origins of a Historiographic Mistake," Early Sci. & Med., 1998, 3:32-65, on p. 41: "since all the topics we today associate under the two terms 'alchemy' and 'chemistry' were indiscriminately classed under either term by early modern writers, we advocate the use of the archaically-spelt chymistry to express inclusively the undifferentiated domain. This usage will help evade the potential arbitrariness and consequent misunderstandings evoked when the terms 'alchemy' and 'chemistry' arc used casually in reference to activities between the time of the Reformation and the end of the seventeenth century."
2. Johann Kunckel, Collegium Physico-Chymicum Experimentale, oder Laboratorium Chymicum (Hamburg, 1716), pp. 506, 527
3. cited in John R. Partington, A History of Chemistry (London: Macmillan, 1961), 2: 367;
4. Kunckel, I'hilosophia chemica experimentis confirmata (Amsterdam, 1695), p. 229
5. cited in Bernard Joly, "L,'alkahest, dissolvant universel, ou quand la théorie rend pensable une pratique impossible," Revue d'Histoire des Sciences, 1996, 49:305-44, see especially p. 309.
6. Ladislao Reti, "Van Helmont, Boyle and the Alkahest," in Ladislao Reti and William C. Gibson, Some Aspects of Seventeenth-Century Medicine and Science (Los Angeles: William Andrews Clark Memorial Library, 1969), pp. 3-19, quotation on p. 9.
7. Joly, "L'alkahest" (n. 2), p. 305.
8. William R. Newman, "The Corpuscular Theory of J. B. van Helmont and Its Medieval Sources," Vivarium, 1993, 31: 161-91;
9. William R. Newman, idem, Gehennical Fire: The Lives of George Starkey, an American Alchemist in the Scientific Revolution (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1994), pp. 146-51, 175-68 (focusing on ran Helmont's influence on George Starkey).
10. Barbara Beigun Kaplan, "Divulging of Useful Truths in Physick": The Medical Agenda of Robert Doyle (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1993).
11. On Paracelsus, see Walter Pagel, Paracelsus: An Introduction to Philosophical Medicine in the Era of the Renaissance, 2d ed. (Basel: S. Karger, 1982).
12. This is shown by Allen G. Debus in The Chemical Philosophy, 2 vols. (New York: Science History Publications, 1977).
13. Reti, "Van Helmont" (n. 3), p. 6;
14. Joly, "L'alkahcst" (n. 2), p. 314.
15. As already noted by Joly, in "L'alkahest" (n. 2), different authors used different spellings for the word alkahest. In the text, I use van Helmont's spelling; in the quotations, however, I respect each author's own version.
16. Paracelsus, Bücher und Schrifften (Basel: Huser, 1589-91), vol. 1, bk. 3, pp. 8-9
17. cited in Joly, "L'alkahcst" (n. 2), p. 314.
18. The last phrase of this quotation was reproduced, in Latin, in George Starkey, Liquor Alchahest, or a Discourse of That Immortal Dissolvent of Paracelsus and Helmont (London: W. Gademan, 1675), title page. Both references were used for my translation.
19. George Starkey, Pyrotechny Asserted and Illustrated (London: R. Daniel for Samuel Thomson, 1658), p. 17.
20. Johann Rudolph Glauber, The Works of the Highly Experienced and Famous Chymist Johann Rudolph Glauber..., trans. Christopher Packe (London: Thomas Milbourn, 1689), part 1, p. 152.
21. Cleidophorus Mystagogus (pseud.), Trifertes sagani, or Immortal Dissolvent... (London: William Pearson, 1705), p. 35.
22. According to Karin Figala, Cleidophorus Mystagogus was the pseudonym of an apothecary, William Y-Worth: see Karin Figala, "Zwei Londoner Alchemisten um 1700: Sir Isaac Newton und Cleidophorus Mystagogus," Physis: Rivista Internazionale di Storia della Scienza, 1976, 18:245-73, see especially pp. 253-57.
23. Kunckel, Collegium physico-chymicum experimentale, p. 506
24. cited in Joly, "L'alkahest" (n. 2), p. 309.
25. Gerard Dorn, Dictionarium Theophrasti Paracelsi (Frankfurt, 1584; reprint, Hildesheim: Georg Olms, 1981), p. 14.
26. Martin Ruland, Lexicon Alchrmiae (Frankfurt: Zachariae Palthenii, 1612; reprint, Hildesheim: Georg Olms, 1964), p. 26.
27. Joly, "L'alkahest" (n. 2), pp. 315-16.
28. Pagel, Paracelsus (n. 7), pp. 142, 201, 366.
29. J. B. van Helmont, Ortus medicinae (Amsterdam: Ludovicum Elzevirium, 1648), p. 334
30. (henceforth Ortus). This quotation (along with subsequent ones) is from the English translation by John Chandler, Oriatrike, or Physick Refined (London: Lodowick Loyd, 1662), p. 329 (henceforth Oriatrike).
31. Arthur E. Waite, ed. and trans., Turba, philosophorum, or Assembly of the Sages (New York: Samuel Weiser, 1970), pp. 114-18.
32. Thomas Norton, The Ordinall of Alchimy, in Theatrum chemicum britannicum, ed. Elias Ashmole (London, 1652; reprint, New York: Johnson, 1967), pp. 76-81.
33. Besides these examples, many others can be cited. For an ancient use of "solvents" among Semitic alchemists, in connection with the transmutation of metals into silver and gold, see Ana Maria Alfonso-Goldfarb, Livro do Tesouro de Alexandre (Petrópolis: Vozes, 1999), pp. 126-49 et passim.
34. Ortus (n. 20), p. 68;
35. Oriatrike (n. 20), pp. 64-65.
36. Van Helmont develops this theory to explain the origin of rain and other atmospheric phenomena; sec "Progymnasma Meteori," in Ortus (n. 20), pp. 66-73;
37. Oriatrike (n. 20), pp. 63-70.
38. Ortus (n. 20), p. 68;
39. Oriatrike (n. 20), p. 64.
40. This question was studied by Newman, "Corpuscular Theory" (n. 5), pp. 176-77.
41. "[R]eligion is amazed or astonished at the finding of a latex or liquor, which being reduced to the least Atomes possible to nature, as loving a single life, would despise the Wedlocks of every ferment" (Ortus [n. 20], p. 116;
42. Oriatrike [n. 20], p. 115).
43. In another passage, van Helmont stated: "[T]he chiefcst and most successfull of salts, is that which reacheth unto the utmost bound and subtility in Nature, which passeth thorow all things, and in acting doth alone remain immutable, and the which doth at pleasure through a ready obedience, resolve other things, and melts and makes volatile all rebellons matter, even as hot water doth snow" (Ortus [n. 20], p. 474;
44. Oriatrike [n. 20], p. 473).
45. It is worth noting how van Helmont uses expressions resembling the alchemical tradition. The idea that the alkahest dissolves bodies in the same fashion that hot water dissolves snow is analogous to a description of the "mercury of the philosophers" given by the Polish chymist Michael Sendivogius (1566-1636): "You must seek for some hidden tiling, out of which is made (after a wonderful manner) such a moisture, or humidity, which doth dissolve gold without violence, or noise, yea so sweetly and naturally as ice doth melt in warm water" (Michael Sendivogius, A New Light of Akhymy, trans. John French [London, 1674], p. 50).
46. "[A]s often as a Body is divided into finer Atomes than the necessity of its substance doth bear, a transmutation of that Body doth also continually follow.... And so meats in the stomach are resolved through the ferment of the place being seasoned with a sharpish quality" (Ortus [n. 20], p. 115;
47. Oriatrike [n. 20], p. 115).
48. Marin Mersenne, Correspondance, ed. Cornelis de Waard, vol. 3 (Paris: Presses Universitaires de France, 1946), p. 33.
49. Marin Mersenne, Correspondance, vol. 3, 1946, Ibid.
50. Ortus (n. 20), p. 790;
51. Oriatrike (n. 20), p. 805.
52. In general, scholars have assumed that "alkahest" and "circulated salt" were used synonymically by van Helmont: see Reti, "Van Helmont" (n. 3), pp. 9-10;
53. Newman, "Corpuscular Theory" (n. 5), p. 181;
54. Joly, "L'alkahest" (n. 2), p. 318.
55. Paracelsus, "The Book Concerning Renovation and Restoration," in The Hermetic and Alchemical Writings of ... Paracelsus the Great, ed. and trans. Arthur E. Waite, 2 vols. (New York: University Books, 1967), 2:124.
56. Paracelsus, The Hermetic and Alchemical Writings of ... Paracelsus the Great, Ibid., 2:130-36.
57. Paracelsus, Archidoxis: Comprised in Ten Books ..., trans. J. H. Oxon (London: W. S., 1660), p. 146.
58. Paracelsus, Archidoxis: Comprised in Ten Books ..., Ibid., pp. 146-48.
59. It is difficult to identify the final product of this preparation using the rationale of modern chemistry. T. P. Sherlock, in "The Chemical Work of Paracelsus," Ambix, 1948, 3:60
60. says that Paracelsus's circulatum derives from John of Rupescissa, and it is common alcohol; however, Sherlock does not mention sal circulatum, or "circulated salt." Reti, in "Van Helmont" (n. 3), p. 10, affirms that Paracelsus's circulatum maius was common alcohol, and he therefore concludes that "circulated salt" must be an alcoholic solution. For the aims of the present paper, however, this point is of no relevance.
61. Ortus (n. 20), pp. 466-67;
62. Oriatrike (n. 20), p. 465.
63. Paracelsus, Archidoxis (n. 35), pp. 148-49.
64. Conrad Gesner, The Treasure of Evonymus, trans. Peter Morwing (London:John Daie, 1559), pp. 94-95.
65. On the idea of quintessence in Gesner and other authors of the period, see Maria Helena Roxo-Beltran, Imagens de magia e de ciência: Entre o simbolismo e os diagramas da razão (São Paulo: EDUC-FAPESP, 2000).
66. Roxo-Beltran, Imagens (n. 39), p. 67;
67. F. S. Taylor, "The Idea of the Quintessence," in Science, Medicine and History, ed. E. A. Underwood, 2 vols. (London: Oxford University Press, 1953), 1: 247-65, see especially p. 255.
68. In this case, it probably was not the historical Raymond Lull, and the references may be from pseudo-epigraphic texts. On this and other aspects of "quintessences" in the Lullian corpus, see Ana Maria Alfonso-Goldfarb, Da alquimia à química: Um estudo sobre a passagem do pensame do mágico-vitalista ao mecanicismo (São Paulo: Nova Stella-EDUSP, 1987), pp. 148-51.
69. Roxo-Beltran, Imagens (n. 39), p. 24;
70. Taylor, "Idea" (n. 40), 1: 255-58.
71. Pagel, Paracelsus (n. 7), p. 244.
72. Taylor, "Idea" (n. 40), 1:263.
73. Ortus (n. 20), p. 466;
74. Oriatrike (n. 20), p. 465.
75. On the uses of scammony in ancient medicine, see Alfonso-Goldfarb, Livro do Tesouro (n. 22), p. 154 n. 220.
76. Ortus (n. 20), pp. 462-63;
77. Oriatrike (n. 20), p. 461.
78. Ortus (n. 20), p. 463;
79. Oriatrike (n. 20), p. 462.
80. J. B. van Helmont, "De lithiasi," cap. 7, in Opuscula medica inaudita (Amsterdam: Ludovicum Elzevirium, 1648), pp. 62-63;
81. Oriatrike (n. 20), pp. 881-82.
82. Ortus (n. 20), p. 480;
83. Oriatrike (n. 20), p. 479.
84. On archeus, see Paulo A. Porto, "O contexto médico na montagem das teorias sobre a matéria de J. B. Van Helmont" (Ph.D. diss., Pontificia Universidade Católica de São Paulo, 1998), pp. 9-37;
85. Paulo A. Porto, idem, Van Helmont e o conceito de gas: Química e medicina no século XVII (São Paulo: EDUC-EDUSP, 1995), pp. 73-78.
86. For details on the concepts of disease and cure, sec Walter Pagel, "Van Helmont's Concept of Disease - To Be Or Not to Be? The Influence of Paracelsus," Bull. Hist. Med., 1972, 46:419-54;
87. Walter Pagel, idem, Joan Baptista van Helmont: Reformer of Science and Medicine (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1982), pp. 141-54;
88. Peter Niebyl, "Sennert, van Helmont, and Medical Ontology," Bull. Hist. Med., 1971, 45:115-37;
89. Peter Niebyl, idem, "The Helmontian Thorn," Bull. Hist. Med., ibid., pp. 570-95.
90. Ortus (n. 20), p. 474;
91. Oriatrike (n. 20), p. 473.
92. Ortus (n. 20), pp. 524, 790;
93. Oriatrike (n. 20), pp. 524, 804-5.
94. Van Helmont, "De lithiasi" (n. 47), cap. 9, pp. 80-81;
95. Oriatrike (n. 20), p. 901.
96. Ortus (n. 20), p. 789;
97. Oriatrike (n. 20), p. 803.
98. Van Helmont also gave other biblical arguments to justify his choice of Lebanon cedar wood: Noah's Ark was built with this incorruptible wood, and the doors of Solomon's Temple were also made of cedar, covered with gold. See Ortus (n. 20), pp. 736-97;
99. Oriatrike (n. 20), pp. 810-11 (incorrectly numbered as 809[bis]-810 in the 1662 edition).
100. Ortus (n. 20), pp. 798-99;
101. Oriatrike (n. 20), p. 812.
102. Ortus (n. 20), p. 797;
103. Oriatrike (n. 20), p. 811.
104. The idea that the primum ens bears the medicinal properties of bodies may also be found in van Helmont's treatises "Pharmaco-polium ac dispensatorium modernomm" (Ortus [n. 20], pp. 452-69;
105. Oriatrike [n. 20], pp. 456-68)
106. and "Potestas medicaminum" (Ortus [n. 20], pp. 470-83;
107. Oriatrike [n. 20], pp. 469-82).
108. Ortus (n. 20), pp. 105, 790;
109. Oriatrike (n. 20), pp. 105, 805.
110. According to Pagel, Paracelsus "requested burial at the almshouse of St. Sebastian" in Salzburg (Paracelsus [n. 7], p. 29);
111. his gravestone is still extant at St. Sebastian Church in that city. Paracclsus's epitaph was quoted by van Helmont in "De lithiasi" (n. 47), cap. 7, pp. 59-00;
112. Oriatrike (n. 20), pp. 878-79.
113. Another English translation is available in Henry M. Pachter, Paracelsus: Magic into Science (New York: Henry Schuman, 1951), p. 290. Van Helmont inferred that one of the "incurable diseases" mentioned in the epitaph as being cured by Paracelsus was duelech.
114. Ortus (n. 20), p. 799;
115. Oriatrike (n. 20), p. 813.
116. Ortus (n. 20), p. 108;
117. Oriatrike (n. 20), p. 108.
118. Oriatrike (n. 20), p. 108. Ibid.
119. Ortus (n. 20), pp. 470-83;
120. Oriatrike (n. 20), pp. 469-82.
121. Debus quotes this dream in Chemical Philosophy (n. 8), 2: 322, 325. He compares it to "alchemical dreams" - a very common theme for adepts of alchemy.
122. Ortus (n. 20), p. 471;
123. Oriatrike (n. 20), p. 470.
124. Ortus (n. 20), pp. 482-83;
125. Oriatrike (n. 20), pp. 481-82.
126. Ortus (n. 20), p. 471;
127. Oriatrike (n. 20), p. 471.
128. Ortus (n. 20), p. 480;
129. Oriatrike (n. 20), p. 479.
130. Oriatrike (n. 20), p. 479, Ibid.
131. In the 1648 edition of Opuscula, this word was mispelled "altahest"; in Oriatrike, the translator corrected it to "alkahest."
132. 4 verso;
133. 4 verso (emphasis added).
134. Van Helmont also referred to the alkahest as "gehennical fire" (i.e., hellfire) - also a means of purification. Sec Newman, Gehennical fire (n. 5), p. xiv.
135. For instance: "[K] now ye that quicksilver is a fire burning the bodies, mortifying and breaking up, with one regimen, and the more it is mixed and pounded with the body, the more the body is disintegrated, while the quicksilver is attenuated and becomes living" (Turba philosophorum [n. 21], p. 85).
136. After explaining that the alchemical process requires the conversion of whole matter into water, one of the characters of the dialogue says: "This [substance that turns matter into water] is the water which the Philosophers have called Water of Gold, the Igneous, Good Venom" (Turba philosophorum, ibid., p. 117).
137. And in another passage: "Know also that quicksilver is fiery, burning every body more than does fire, also mortifying bodies, and that every body which is mingled with it is ground and delivered over to be destroyed" (Turba philosophorum, ibid., pp. 136-37).
138. Sendivogius, Processus super centrum universi seu sal centrale
139. cited in Z. Szydlo, "The Alchemy of Michael Sendivogius: His Central Nitre Theory," Ambix, 1993, 40:141 (emphasis added).
140. Ortus (n. 20), pp. 671-72, 743, 793;
141. Oriatrike (n. 20), pp. 673-74, 751-52, 807.
142. Van Helmont, "De lithiasi" (n. 47), cap. 7, p. 63;
143. Oriatrike (n. 20). p. 882.
144. Van Helmont, "De lithiasi" (n. 47), cap. 9, p. 80;
145. Oriatrike (n. 20), p. 901.
146. For instance, see Van Helmont, "De lithiasi" (n. 47), cap. 8, p. 68;
147. Oriatrike (n. 20), p. 887.
148. On this point, see Pagel, Joan Baptista van Helmont (n. 49), pp. 23-26.
149. Glauber, Works (n. 13), part 1, pp. 108-10, 152-54, 162-67, 259;
150. Glauber, Works (n. 13), part 2, pp. 90, 178, 212-13.
151. Glauber, Works, Ibid., part 1, p. 162 (emphasis in original).
152. Glauber, Works, Ibid., p. 108.
153. Glauber, Works, Ibid., p. 107.
154. Nowadays, we say that fused saltpeter is a strong oxidant, and therefore very reactive.
155. This is an alkaline solution.
156. "Salt-peter is an universal Dissolvent, and is able to dissolve all the things in the whole World, if it be made use of in three forms or shapes, Whatsoever the acid Spirit thereof, or the Eagle with its sharp Claws cannot effect, its fixed Salt, or the fiery Lyon will accomplish: and whatsoever is impossible to be done by these two, the Griffon which hath its rise from the Eagle and Lyon, will artificially perform" (Glauber, Works [n. 13], part 1, p. 406).
157. Here, Glauber referred to common saltpeter as a "griffon," the legendary animal with the head and wings of an eagle and the body of a lion; he meant that by joining the acid spirit ("Eagle") with the fixed salt ("Lion"), common niter was produced: "the corrosive Spirit prepared out of Salt-peter by Distillation, and likewise the fix[ed] Salt, are most bitter enemies to each other, which ruinating and slaying one another, and being dead, return agen unto that which they were afore, and partakes of both natures" (Glauber, Works, ibid.).
158. Not all chymists shared Glauber's idea about a "tripartite alkahestical secret"; Starkey found it "ludicrous, monstrous, stupefying, and a ten-fold lie," as he expressed in a letter to Boyle dated 16 January 1652 (Royal Society Boyle Letters, vol. 5, vols. 131-32).
159. The following quotation illustrates how Glauber considered the alkahest among his other medicinal preparations: "I affirm and confess therefore sincerely, that all and every the invented medicines published by others and my self, how rare and costly soever, are most mean things in my estimation. For this Universal Key was wanting to us. For our vegetables and minerals, however by art macerated, cannot be perfectly resolved, and therefore we hitherto have had but part of their venues. But now we need not much art, labour and cost, to reduce a whole body without corrosives, into the first matter,... which cannot be done without this menstruum.... By this means the most strong Herbs, which without this Preparation are poysons, are matured and purified by the liquor Alcahest, so that they may safely be taken against most grievous Diseases" (Glauber, Works [n. 13], part 1, p. 108).
160. "From this root doth spring and arise those medicaments prepared by the alkahest (but not otherwise to be had) that Paracelsus called Hematina. . . . These hematine medicines may be had forth of gold and silver; but not without the help of their constructive liquor, or universal solvent: and therefore ... are not ordained for remedies for the poor; and that scarce one artist of a thousand, can rightly get these rare and excellent medicines" (John Webster, Metallographia, or An History of Metals [London: Walter Kettilby, 1671], pp. 188-89).
161. Antonio Clericuzio, "From van Helmont to Boyle: A Study of the Transmission of Helmontian Chemical and Medical Theories in Seventeenth-Century England," Brit. J. Hist. Sci., 1993, 26:303-34, sec especially p. 312.
162. See also Ronald S. Wilkinson, "The Hartlib Papers and Seventeenth-Century Chemistry," part 1, Ambix, 1968, 15:54-69;
163. ibid., part 2, Ambix, 1970, 17:85-110;
164. John T. Young, Faith, Medical Alchemy and Natural Philosophy:Johann Moriaen, Reformed Intelligencer and the Hartlib Circle (Aldershot: Ashgate, 1998).
165. Robert Boyle, Some Considerations Touching the Usefulnesse of Experimental Naturall Philosophy (Oxford: Hen. Hall, 1663), part 2, pp. 82-83;
166. Robert Boyle, idem, The Works of the Honourable Robert Boyle, ed. Thomas Birch, 6 vols. (London, 1772), 2: 97.
167. This tract was mentioned in a list of Boyle's texts, "Tracts Relating to the Hermetical Philosophy," written ca. 1680; it is also mentioned in his preface to The Producibleness of Chymical Principles (Oxford, 1680).
168. See Lawrence M. Principe, The Aspiring Adept: Robert Boyle and His Alchemical Quest (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1998), pp. 63, 125, 184.
169. This early version was entitled "Of the Attempts of the Chymists, an Universal Medecine, the Alkahest and the Elixir": see Principe, Aspiring Adept (n. 88), p. 184.
170. Boyle, Usefulnesse (n. 87), part 2, p. 82;
171. Works (n. 87), 2:97.
172. Works, Ibid., p. 87;
173. Works, 2:99.
174. Works, Ibid., p. 87;
175. Works, 2:100.
176. Robert Boyle, Experiments, and Notes, about the Mechanical Origine and Production of Volatility (London: E. Flesher, 1675), p. 26;
177. Works (n. 87), 4: 299.
178. Robert Boyle, The Sceptical Chymist (London: J. M. Dent, Everyman's Library, 1949), p. 50.
179. Robert Boyle, The Sceptical Chymist, Ibid., p. 69.
180. Robert Boyle, The Sceptical Chymist, Ibid., p. 75.
181. Clericuzio, "From van Helmont" (n. 86), p. 312.
182. Wilkinson, "Hartlib Papers" (n. 86), part 2, p. 88.
183. George Starkey, Nature's Explication and Helmont's Vindication (London: E. Cotes for Thomas Alsop, 1657), p. 294.
184. George Starkey, Nature's Explication and Helmont's Vindication, Ibid., pp. 294-95.
185. George Starkey, Nature's Explication and Helmont's Vindication, Ibid., pp. 296-97.
186. Starkey, Pyrotechny (n. 12), p. 17.
187. Starkey, Pyrotechny, Ibid., pp. 22-28.
188. Eirenaeus Philoponus Philalethes (pseud), The Marrow of Alchemy (London: Edw. Brewster, 1655), part 2, bk. 1, p. 19.
189. Eirenaeus Philoponus Philalethes (pseud), The Marrow of Alchemy, Ibid., pp. 19-23.
190. Mystagogus, Trifertes sagani (n. 14), pp. 27-44.
191. Starkey, Liquor Alchahest (n. 11), pp. 17, 20.
192. There is also a brief treatise on the alkahest, written in the form of questions and answers, in a bilingual edition: The Secret of the Immortal Liquor Called Alkahest / Arcanum liquoris immortalis ignis-aquae; seu alkahest, whose author is identified as "Eirenaeus Philalethes"; as in Liquor Alchahest, human urine is again indicated as the starting material for preparing the "igneous water." This short treatise is part of a volume entitled Collectanea chymica, ed. W. Cooper (London: William Cooper, 1684), pp. 4-23. The book comprises works by several chymists, including a treatise signed by Starkey himself.
193. On this letter see Joly, "L'alkahest" (n. 2), pp. 325-28.
194. 1 thank an anonymous reviewer for this reference.
195. Van Helmont, "De lithiasi" (n. 47), cap. 7, p. 64;
196. Ortus (n. 20), p. 507;
197. Oriatrike (n. 20), pp. 883, 506.
198. Pagel, Joan Baptista van Helmont (n. 49), pp. 207-8.