Page:Reflections upon ancient and modern learning (IA b3032449x).pdf/225

 made are so very much later than those Ages which Sir William Temple contends for, that those who thought they had a great deal to say for the other Parts of Chymistry, do here give up the Controversie. Borrichius himself owns, that Hippocrates, Aristotle and Galen knew so little of Chymistry, that they could not so much as make Rose-water. Now, though he says this with a Design to disparage their Skill in Physick, when compared with the Egyptian, yet therein he destroys his own Hypothesis; because, in several Places of his Vindication of the Hermetical and Chymical Philosophy and Medicine, against Conringius's Book De Medicina Hermetica, he takes Pains to prove, that the Knowledge of these very Men was originally owing to the Egyptians. But the Thing speaks it self: The inward Use of Antimonial, Vitriolick, and Mercurial Preparations in Physick, was very little known before the Time of Basilius Valentinus, and Paracelsus: What was ancienter, was taken from the Arabs, who are Moderns against Sir William Temple. (i) They may be looked upon as the first Inventors of Chymical Medicine: (i) They first extracted Vinous Spirits from Fermented Liquors: Not to men-