Page:Cyclopaedia, Chambers - Supplement, Volume 1.djvu/102

Rh The most frequent objection to its existence is, in what kind of vessel it is to be contained? If it be answered in a glass vessel, there is at once a negation of its universality, since glass, except of a particular compact kind, cannot sustain the dissolving power of divers acid spirits, but, in a few hours, turns to a kind of magistery. Glauber$t$ indeed enjoins, that a fresh thick glafs be applied every fix hrours, to prevent the Alkaheji from being spilt by dissolving the glass; but, on this supposition, it cannot possibly ever be a pure liquor, but must be impregnated with the atoms, or corroded particles of the glafs, and confequently be a fort of vitrum potabile. How abfurd, then, muft that pretention of Glauber be, where he affirms, that the Alkaheji was the fire of the Maccabees hid under the altar ", and difcovered many years after in a pit, in form of a thick oil ?— If this were the Alkaheji, how, or in what, had it been preferved fo long .' and what hindered it from refolving the pit into its firft matter, and by eating nfelf a paffage under ground, undermining the whole country i Wedekind would folve the inconfiftency, by alledging, that divers things are requifite to the operation of the Alkaheji ; that bodies, before applied to it for folution, are to undergo a preparation ; if vegetables, by cutting, contufing, rafping, &c. if ftones, or the like, by trituration, alcoholization, &c. if metals, by lamination, calcination, &c. Befides that in the operation, there is to be digeftion, repeated cohobations, and even fire applied for a certain time. But this will not fuffice ; fince it is agreed, that the preparations above-men- tioned are only ufed for the eafier and quicker folution ; not that they are effentially necefTary. If there be an Alkaheji, it cannot fail, in procefs of time, to reduce the glafs into its firft principles, without any previous preparation ; though, with the help of an alcoholization, it might have eft'eftcd it in left time. Nor can a long time be necefTary for fuch end, fince there are other corrofive liquors, which will diffolve glafs in a fhort time ; which, in that cafe, muft have much the preference to the Alkaheji. Add, that if the Alkaheji, according to the definition fometimes given of it, only dif- folve the cohefion of mixts, it will follow, that the greater number of heterogeneous particles a mixt confifts of, the more faxes will be left at bottom ; whereas it ought to have refolvcd thefe faxes themfelves, nay all the matter of the three kingdoms, into their primitive matter, viz. water, &c. To reduce a mixed into feveral fubftances, is not fo properly to diffolve as to corrode it ; the latter, aqua regia does to gold ; the former is required from the Alkaheji ; which is not to reduce bodies into divers matters, but into their firft, or elementary matter, which therefore is but one. And if this folvcnt require fire, digeftion, cohobation, &c. to make it act, how (hall we conceive it to operate without reaflion, paflion, &c. and, on fuch fuppofition, what ufe would di- geftion be of »?_[. Opp. Miner. P. 10. p. 315. feq. " 2 Maccab. c. i, v. 19. " Ephem. Acad. N. C. dec. 3. an. 3. App. p. toi, 104.]

After all, who can doubt of the poffibility of the Alkaheji ? All the objeffions arife only from the obfeurities of the procefs, which has rendered fuccefslefs the attempts of moft of thofe who have undertaken to prepare it : our reader, therefore, tis to be hoped, will thank us for a new procefs for making this wonderful liquor, in terms not eafy to be miftaken, by any of the genuine fons of Hermes. If he read it with a mind duly prepared, and purged from thofe heterogenities wherewith fenfe fometimes over-clouds the intellea. It is faithfully tranfenbed from an Egyptian marble, hewn by the

author of the tomb of Semiramis, from the great pyramid

I ake then fome fubterraneous Adam, which is a metal not a metal, a marcafite not a marcafite, a mineral not a mineral, nothing and all things : take this Adam ; and as the firft Adam was commanded in the fweat of his brow to eat his bread ; do you proceed in the contrary method : fee that your Adam be firft well fed, and filled ; that he eat to fweat and not fweat to eat. When thoroughly fated, cut off his limbs ; thruft him into a ftove ; and gradually raifing the fire, fweat him till he melt down to the very bones This fweat, when duely cleanfed, will be of a whitifh-black co- lour, and tafre ftrongly of a fower fweet. Infufe the limbs in this fweat i a fine golden, permanent tinflure will be hereby had 1 into which a handful of mineral blood bein» ca ft, wel Maturated with vegetable blood ; a glittering rudd? colour will anfe, far tranfeending that of a carbuncle The mineral is then to be feparated from the vegetable blood, and fa to bathe, till ,t has got wings, by means whereof it will flutter about perpetually. Having thus acquired an aerial na- ture, a lotion in aqua ca-lejlh, condenfes it again into a heavy fubftance, more ponderous than gold, yet lighter than a fea- ther ; harder and more compafl than a diamond, yet rarer and more pervious than aether itfelf : which is the true Alka- heji; wherewith, if you underftand this procefs, you may rettore your Adam to life again '

Philaletha ", Starkey, Pelletier r, Martini ', De la Caze ' and o*ers have difcourfes, dialogues, epiftles, &c on the fubject of the A/iabefl.-Divers particulars alfo relating to he

the philofophers (tone, &c ',

ALK

[* L'Alkaheft, ou le Diffolvant Univcrfel de Van Helmont, revele dans plufieurs Traitez, qui en decouvrent le Secret Rou. 1706. i2mo. It is properly a collection of the beft pieces on the Alkaheji ; comprehending fome fragments ex- tra£ted from Philaletha, wherein he defcribes, after an inge- nious manner, the fecret of that diffolvent : alfo five chap- ters of Starkey's Pyrothechnia ; a dialogue on the Alkaheji ; and a pofthumous piece, wherein he fhews how he difco- vered this liquor, and the manner of preparing it. Extracts, of the work are given in Jour, des Scav. T. 34. p. 831. It. p. 1042. Mem. de Trev. 1704. p. 1861. Works of Learn. T. 8. p. 643. Suite du Traite de l'AIkaheft, ou. l'on rapport plufieurs endroits des ouvrages de Georges Star- key, qui decouvrent la maniere de volatilifer les Alkalis, & d'en preparer des remedes fuccedanees ou approachants de ceux que l'on peut preparer par l'Alkaeft, Rou. 1706. _l2mo. Extrafts of which are given in Jour, des Scav. T. 34. p. 189. feq. & Mem. de Trev. 1706. p. 239. ' Remarques fur la pretendue decouverte de l'Alkaeft, donnie au public par M. le Pelletier ; printed in Mem. de Trev. 1707. p. 1443. * Lettre a un de fes Amis, avec des re- marques fur celle de. . . . Chirurgien, A. M touchant

la poffibilite du Diffolvant Univerfel ; printed in Mem. de Trev. 1708. p. 1918. • Lettre a M. D. M. fur fes re- marques contre M. le Pelletier ; printed in Mem. de Trev. 1707. p. 1461. Anonymi Philaletha; Traa. de Liquore Alcaeft ; printed at the end of Werdig. Nov. Medic. Spirit. Curiof. Hamb. 1688. 8vo. V. Giorn. de Letter, de Parm." 1689. p. 235. b See further concerning the origin of the Alkaheji, Helmont, Tract, Arcan. Paracelf. p. 481. It in Traa. Arb. Vit. p. 485. It. in Traa. de Lithias, 1 -i. c. 7. J. 23. p. 44. It. Traft. Form. Ort. §. 8. p. 92. It. I raft. Terra, §. 15. p. 3; . It. T ra a. Pot. Medic. §. 44. p. 296. Its matter and preparation, Starkey, Pyrotechn. 1. 1. Act. Erud. Lipf. Supp. T. 1. p. 180. Its exittence, Bald- win, Hermes Curiof. c. 11. The fecret of it not to be re- vealed, Tomb. Semiram. c. 6. Ephem. Acad. N. C. dec 1. an. 4. App. p. 75.]

The word Alkaheji feems to have been coined by Paracelfus, no writer of any kind having ever mentioned it before him. He fays, it is a remedy of great eftta upon the liver, re- ftoring and fortifying it, and preventing dropfies, and other difeafes. He tells us, its procefs is to refolve it after it is co- agulated, and then coagulate it again into a tranfmuted form. He adds, that though the liquor were to be given in cafes where the liver were all diffolved, it would be able to fupply the place of the liver in the human body ; and therefore that it is necefTary for every phyfician to know this medicine, that he may be able to cure numerous difeafes of the liver, not curable by any other means.

This is the account of the Alkaheji given by its author, who never feems to have hinted at any fuch property in it, as its being an univerfal diffolvent. But his fucceffor, Van Hel- mont, who always found hidden meanings in his works, dif- covered the fecret, as he pretends, of this, and difcovered thefe its amazing qualities.

All chemical folutions, as Boerhaave very juftly obferves feem the effba of a latent attraaion and repulfion betwixt the parts of the folvent and folvend, and confequently the whole aaion depends upon a mutual relation and affinity between thefe two : and if this be the cafe, there can be no body, either natural or artificial, which can have a power of diffol- ving all the reft. Boerbaave's Chem. p. 569. Helmont, however, pofitively affirms the faa', and Mr. Boyle and many other great men, though they pretended not to be- lieve the poffibility of it, yet, by their numerous, though vain attempts, to difcover it, feem to have, in fecret, thought it might be. to

It was the cuftoni of Paracelfus to tranfpofe the letters in words, which he ufed as the names of his medicines, and fometimes to join parts of different words into one ; as in his names jutratar, for tartar, given as a medicine to open obftruaions of the fpleen, and aroph, for aroma phihjopho- rum, an arMed name given, by fome, to tartar. Hence fome have imagined, that by this word Alkaheji, he only meant alkali ejl, it is an alkali ; intimating, that the bafis of the medicine was an alkali, though fated with a proper acid in the preparation. Others have imagined, it was called Al- kah 'Jl, from faltz-geljl, fpirit of fait, fuppofing the Alka- heji the fame with the fal cireulatum prepared from fea fait coagulated, refolved, and again coagulated into a tranfmu- tated form : and others fuppofe it had its origin from algeift that is, a perfea fpirit made by coagulation,°reiblution, and a fecond coagulation. This agrees with the opinion of Faber who takes it to be a pure mercurial, or metallic fpirit, fo united to its proper body, as thence to become one infepar- able and indeftruaible fubftance. All this, however, is but bare conjeaure, and that upon no very folid grounds. Paracelfus gives no fynonyma for the Alkaheji ; but Helmont calls it fometimes a thin and clear water ; fometimes a thick water ; in which fenfe, he fuppofes it like the thick water mentioned in the Maccabees, which was perpetual fire ; and in other places he calls it an immutable diffolving water. He

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