further resoluble into differing substances; Yet in very many extracts
drawn from Vegetables, it may very easily be manifested that the
spirit of Wine has not sequestred the sulphureous Ingredient from the
saline and Mercurial ones; but has dissolv'd (for I take it to be a
Solution) the finer Parts of the Concrete (without making any nice
distinction of their being perfectly Sulphureous or not) and united it
self with them into a kind of Magistery; which consequently must
contain Ingredients or Parts of several sorts. For we see that the
stones that are rich in vitriol, being often drench'd with
rain-Water, the Liquor will then extract a fine and transparent
substance coagulable into Vitriol; and yet though this Vitriol be
readily dissoluble in Water, it is not a true Elementary Salt, but, as
You know, a body resoluble into very differing Parts, whereof one (as
I shall have occasion to tell You anon) is yet of a Metalline, and
consequently not of an Elementary Nature. You may consider also, that
common Sulphur is readily dissoluble in Oyle of Turpentine, though
notwithstanding its Name it abounds as well, if not as much, in Salt
as in true Sulphur; witness the great quantity of saline Liquor it
affords being set to flame away under a glasse Bell. Nay I have, which
perhaps You will think strange, with the same Oyle of Turpentine alone
easily enough dissolv'd crude Antimony finely powder'd into a
Blood-red Balsam, wherewith perhaps considerable things may be
perform'd in Surgery. And if it were now Requisite, I could tell You
of some other Bodies (such as Perhaps You would not suspect) that I
have been able to work upon with certain Chymical Oyles. But instead
of digressing further I shall make this use of the Example I have
nam'd. That 'tis not unlikely, but that Spirit of Wine which by its
pungent tast, and by some other Qualities that argue it better
(especially its Reduciblenesse, according to _Helmont_, into _Alcali_,
and Water,) seems to be as well of a Saline as of a Sulphureous
Nature, may well be suppos'd Capable of Dissolving Substances That are
not meerly Elementary sulphurs, though perhaps they may abound with
Parts that are of kin thereunto. For I find that Spirit of Wine will
dissolve _Gumm Lacca_, _Benzoine_, and the _Resinous_ Parts of
_Jallap_, and even of _Guaiacum_; whence we may well suspect that it
may from Spices, Herbs, and other lesse compacted Vegetables, extract
substances that are not perfect Sulphurs but mixt Bodies. And to put
it past Dispute, there is many a Vulgar Extract drawn with Spirit of
Wine, which committed to Distillation will afford such differing
substances as will Loudly proclaim it to have been a very compounded
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