Page:Chronicles of pharmacy (Volume 1).djvu/333

 be drawn off by water and conveyed to the human organism.

It is not necessary here to follow out his chain of reasoning from the vital element in tar up to the Supreme Mind from which that vital principle emanated. On the way the author quoted freely and effectively from Plato and Pythagoras, from Theophrastus and Pliny, from Boerhaave and Boyle, and from many other authorities. He showed how the balsams and resins of the ancient world were of the same nature as tar. Van Helmont said, "Whoever can make myrrh soluble by the human body has the secret of prolonging his days," and Boerhaave had recognised that there was truth in this remark on account of the anti-putrefactive power of the myrrh. This was the power which tar possessed in so large a degree. Homberg had made gold by introducing the vital element in the form of light into the pores of mercury. The process was too expensive to make the production of gold by this means profitable, but the fact showed an analogy with the concentration of the same element in the tar.

Berkeley's process for making the tar water was simply to pour 1 gallon of cold water on a quart of tar; stir it with a wooden ladle for five or six minutes, and then set the vessel aside for three days and nights to let the tar subside. The water was then to be drawn off and kept in well-stoppered bottles. Ordinarily half a pint might be taken fasting morning and night, but to cure disease much larger doses might be given. It had proved of extraordinary value not only in small-pox, but also in eruptions and ulcers, ulceration of the bowels and of the lungs, consumptive cough, pleurisy, dropsy, and gravel. It greatly aided digestion, and