Introduction - Uppsala Monitoring Centre

temperature, and some liniment particular on the part affected, as
also on the parts adjacent: the which liniment shall be composed of
axungie 101 , rosat Mesues, or butter, adding such quantity of mercury
as you shall find expedient. By this liniment and the decoction, you
shall have a great help in the cure.’
‘Of the nature of Quick-siluer, and the true preparation thereof.’
The 10. Chapter. Of the nature of Quick-siluer, and the true
preparation thereof.
‘I find great diversity of opinions amongst the ancients, touching
Quicksilver, for the most part esteem it to be cold and humid.
Avicenna in his second canon, notes it to be cold and moist in the
second degree. Gulielmus Placentinus 102 , Arnaldus de villa novae 103 ,
and Placarius 104 , thinks it to be cold in the fourth degree, which may
easily be perceived, for it is truth that it repels the humour from the
circumference to the centre, & causes by the great coldness hereof,
palsy and trembling, and the members to be inflexible, as says Pliny,
Dioscorides, and Palmarius. Avicenna says, that it causes a stinking
breath, with dimness of the sight, falling of the teeth, which we see to
be true in such as have this sickness, and have often been rubbed
therewith. Some esteem it to be hot and dry, but few approved
authors are of that opinion. There are two kinds of it, natural and
artificial, the natural is found in the veins and dens of the earth, as
says Pliny and Dioscorides, and is called by them, Hydargirus. It is
found also amongst metals, as reports Dioscarides in his first book.
The artificial is made of Minium, and scrapings of marble, as writes
Vitruvius 105 in his seventh book of his architecture. Some of it is
found & drawn out of lead, and is easily known from the other, being
of colour brown, and black, and of substance thick, leaving some rest
behind, like the excrements of lead, which is not meet for this
purpose. That which is clean white and subtle is good. Nevertheless,
having chosen the most proper for our use, it must be yet prepared
and purified after this sort following. First you shall take so much of it
101 Axungie = lard
102 Gulielmus Placentinus = Guglielmo da Saliceto (c1216-1280) born Saliceto near Piacenza,Italy. Wrote
‘Summa Curationis et conservationis’.
103 Arnaldus de Villa Nouae = Alchemist, astrologer and physician from Valencia (c1235-1311)
104 Placarius = I think this must be Matthaeus Platearius. See 1190
105 Vitruvius = Marcus Vitruvius Pollio, writer, architect and astrologer (c80/70BC - after 15BC)