Page 141 - The Grotesque Children's Book

SIDEBAR. Treatment for the Coughing, with Astragalus. Submitted,
may it please the Court, by Pandolfo Pelece, Barrister, as supplement to the case
before it.

Dr. Tigulus’s Most Assured Tonic for the Cough.

1. Take Astragalus one and a half to Sal armoniac one dram, Arinat one
half dram, Sal niter one and a half dram, Sal gemmae, one dram, and Alumen
crudum one half dram. These are the species that belong to and should be taken
for the Water to dissolve the Astragalus. Take these Species and mix them well
among each other, and distill from this a water, at first rather slowly. For the
Spiritus go with great force, more than in other strong waters. And beware of its
spirits, for they are subtle and harmful in their penetration.

2. When you now have the dissolved Astragalus, clean and well
sweetened, and its sharp waters washed out, so that you do not notice any
sharpness any more, then put into a clean vial and overpour it with a good
distilled vinegar.

3. Then put the vial in Fimum Equinum, or Balneum Mariae, to putrefy
forty (read: four) days and nights, and it will dissolve and be extracted red as
blood.

4. Then take it out and examine how much remains to be dissolved, and
decant the clear and pure, which will have a red color, very cautiously into a glass
flask.

5. Then pour fresh vinegar onto it, and put it into Digestion as before, so
that that which may have remained with the faecibus, it should thus have ample
time to become dissolved. Then the faeces may be discarded, for they are no
longer useful, except for being scattered over the earth and thrown away.

6. Afterwards pour all the solutions together into a glass retort, put into
Balneum Mariae, and distill the sharp vinegar rather a fresh one, since the former
would be too weak, and the matter will very quickly become dissolved by the
vinegar. Distill it off again, so that the matter remains quite dry.

7. Then take common distilled water and wash away all sharpness, which
has remained with the matter from the vinegar, and then dry the matter in the sun,
or otherwise by a gentle fire, so that it becomes well dried. It will then be fair to
behold, and have a bright red color. The Philosophers, when they have thus
prepared our Antimonium in secret, have remarked how its outermost nature and

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