208 PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS. PaNNO 1673. 



The learned author of this vindication, begins with showing against his famous 

 antagonist, that the Egyptian Hermes, as an excellent man, a great physician 

 and chemist, has well deserved of all mankind, and consequently is highly 

 injured by Conringius's detractions. In this part the reader will meet with a 

 fund of learning and antiquity, and see, among many other particulars, that 

 Pythagoras, one of the best and most solid philosophers and mathematicians 

 among the ancients, learned his philosophy in Egypt ; that the great work of 

 transmutation is due to this Hermes; that from thence the Egyptians acquired 

 that immense wealth, by which they raised such vast structures ; that those 

 Egyptians were so skilful in making artificial gems, that in lustre and hardness 

 they vied with the true natural ones ; those ancient artists being masters of three 

 things in this their work, which by the Grecians were called a^ai'wo-i?, j3«(p^, rui|/i? ; 

 the first implying a laxity .of pores, sufficient to imbibe the tincture; the 

 second, a strong adhesion and due lustre of the colour; the third, a hardening 

 again of the body of the gem, after the ingress of the tincture. 



He takes notice of another particular, strictly observed among the old Egyp- 

 tians, viz. that each of their physicians applied himself to the knowledge and 

 cure of one only disease, by which he became very sagacious and expert in 

 recovering his patients of such a malady; which way could not but conduce very 

 much to the improvement of physic, and the benefit of the people. He ob- 

 serves also, that the most celebrated men of Greece travelled into Egypt to 

 acquire knowledge, and gained every advantage from their travels they could 

 . desire. 



Discoursing of the virtues of preparations made of animal substances, and 

 particularly of the spirit of blood, he declares, that the volatile spirits of human 

 blood are more powerful in the curing of the epilepsy, than those of the blood 

 of other animals; refuting the assertion of Conringius, importing, that the 

 ancients did not employ human blood but in their magics. 



Examining the controversy, whether the virtues of purgatives or vomitives 

 pass into their distilled waters, he recites an experiment he made on a dog, with 

 the distilled water of black hellebore, which was, that having given him 12 

 spoonfuls of it within 4 hours, he vomited four times, and dunged twice, all 

 very copiously. 



Discussing the question about the resuscitation of plants, which he seems 

 inclined to maintain, he alleges, for the countenancing of it, the regeneration 

 of bodies of other kinds, and amongst them he takes notice of mercury, affirm- 

 ing, that that substance, having been a whole year exposed to various fires, and 

 reduced into water, turbith, and ashes, will, by the attraction of the salt of tartar 

 amidst the flames, return to the pristine liquor : and that lead, reverberated into 



