GLAUBER, Johann Rudolf.

by Johann Rudolf Glauber

£4,500 · Offered by Sokol Books

Rare first French edition of this rich compendium of alchemical processes and their medical uses by the German alchemist Johann Rudolf Glauber s (1604-70), illustrated with his inventions of furnaces for distillation, mineral baths and the separation and refining of metals, first published 1646-49 in Latin. The book describes five different models of furnaces designed by Glauber, followed by a volume of annotations to the fifth part. The first volume includes a description of glass vessels and the process by which they can be used with the first furnace for the distillation of essential oils and liquors. Glauber then outlines the many botanical and mineral oils, etc., that one can distil, along with their medical benefits: a spirit made from paper or linen, for example, can be used to treat gangrene. Other sections include the production of flowers or crystals from precious metals and minerals, the use of mercury to treat scabies and venereal diseases - elsewhere Glauber warns of the terrible dangers of abusing mercury - and the use of spirit of salt in cuisine when cooking chicken, pigeon or veal, etc. The second furnace is used for producing acids, nitres and sulphurs, as well as distilling pearls, crab's eyes , i.e. hard stones found in crayfish, etc. The third book gives an account of wooden cabinets with furnaces that can be used for bathing in mineral waters or brewing beer, etc., the illustrations showing a bearded man enclosed in the casement with only his head emergi

• Binding: Hardcover

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