Millions of vessels, retorts, and phials, were
either exposed to the action of the most violent artificial heat, or to
the natural warmth of the sun; or else they were buried in some dunghill
or other fetid mass, for the purpose of attracting this _original
matter_, or obtaining it from putrescible substances.
As the metal called gold always bore the highest value, these crude
philosophers concluded, from a ridiculous analogy, that its value with
respect to the preservation of health and the cure of diseases, must
likewise surpass that of all other remedies. The nugatory art of
dissolving it, so as to render it potable, and to prevent it from again
being converted into metal, employed a multitude of busy idiots, not
only in concealed corners, but in the splendid laboratories of the
great. Sovereigns, magistrates, counsellors, and impostors, struck with
the common frenzy, entered into friendship and alliance, formed private
fraternities, and sometimes proceeded to such a pitch of extravagance,
as to involve themselves and their posterity in ruinous debts.
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