The Triumphal Chariot of Antimony. 41 



it has been cooked over the fire, by 

 which means the red colour of the meat 

 is removed, and a white nutritious sub- 

 stance is substituted in its place. If a 

 man, driven by hunger, were to eat the 

 raw, red flesh, it would be a poison to 

 him rather than a medicine, because the 

 stomach has not sufficient natural heat to 

 digest the raw material. In the same 

 way, it will be so much the more danger- 

 ous for you to use Antimony before 

 separation, preparation, and coction, as 

 the mineral substance is more gross and 

 poisonous in its raw state than that 

 obtained from the animal body. 



Therefore Antimony must be so 

 thoroughly deprived of its poisonous 

 nature that it can never again return to 

 it, just as wine which has once been 

 changed into vinegar by putrefaction and 

 corruption, can never again produce the 

 spirit of wine, but must always remain 

 vinegar. But when, by means of distilla- 

 tion, the spirit alone is removed from the 

 wine, so that the watery part is separated 

 from the spirit, and the spirit is after- 



