Myths in medicine and old-time doctors / by Alfred C. Garratt.

  • Garratt, Alfred C. (Alfred Charles), 1813?-1891.
Date:
1884
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Myths in medicine and old-time doctors / by Alfred C. Garratt. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by the Harvey Cushing/John Hay Whitney Medical Library at Yale University, through the Medical Heritage Library. The original may be consulted at the Harvey Cushing/John Hay Whitney Medical Library at Yale University.

    144/262 (page 136)
    CHAPTER VI. WHAT WAS ALCHEMY IN THE SEVENTEENTH CENTURY ? I have observed that a reader seldom peruses a book with pleasure till he knows whether the writer of it be a black or fair man.—Ad- dison. The following paragraphs are taken from the title-page and preface of an old book by John French, supposed to have been among the last published works on alchemy in the English language. It was published in London, England, in 1650, and in repeated editions till 1657. The Art of Distillations : a full treatise of the choisest Sphagyrical Preparations in true Alchymie; prepared by way of Distillation—with discriptions of the best Furnaces and vessels used by the ancient and modern Chemists. The anatomy of gold, and silver, and their choicest preper- ations, and their virtues ; in Six Books ; by John French Dr. in Physic. To which is added in the fourth edition, Sublimation and Calcination, in Two Books. Printed by E Cotes for F Williams, at the Bible in Little-britian, London, 1657. Dedicated to my much Honoured Friend Tobias Gardbrand, Doctor of Physic and Princi- pal of Gloucester Hall, in Oxford, England. Dated in preface, Nov. 25, 1650. Nature and Art afford a variety of Sphagyrical Prep- arations, but they are yet partly undiscovered, and dis- persed in many books, and these of divers Languages, and partly reserved in private hands. When I consider what need there is of, and how acceptable, a general