Article: Historical Alchemical Treatise by Viollet-le-Duc
As published in The Stone, Issue 13

This 18th century treatise on the acetate work with lead is considered to be the best of its kind by Jean Dubuis. He has mentioned the work in various seminars, most recently at the one in Paris. We thought that you might like to examine it here in The Stone.

Preparation of Saturn which is efficient against the Lepra of human & metallic bodies,
and of which an oily solvent can be made
by Viollet-le-Duc, from his
Mineral & Metallic Medicines

Distill a large quantity of good vinegar, till you have a cask full of it, because it is the basis and the foundation of this Work. To strengthen it more, distill it several times over the feces, then mix everything you have distilled with as much other non-dephlegmatized vinegar, and let them go over together, so that the distillate will become all the more efficacious. The dregs that remain at the bottom are put in a retort over a good fire by means of which one can extract an excellent oil from them, which can burn of its own and dissolve all kinds of minerals.

After preparing this solvent, take 80 lbs of powdered litharge - and not white lead or minium of lead calx, as several artists do, especially Isaac Hollandus. Take, I say, this litharge and put it in several big and very strong flasks. Pour on it as much of your vinegar that it will overfloat by 6 fingers' breadth, and then put it on an ash-fire. Extract the salt of Saturn by a slow digestion, and on the feces that are left after the extraction of the salt and the crystals, pour one more the same amount of menstruum as indicated above. Continue doing this till all your litharge has turned into crystals which are, properly speaking, what the philosophers call the Chaos or the metallic materia prima.

On this crystalline substance, again put for the last time fresh distilled vinegar. Dissolve it over a slow fire and filter it, so as to obtain a perfectly pure and flawless menstruum which, after passing through the steam-bath, will leave a substance that melts like wax at the bottom of the alembic. It hardens in the cold as it melts in the heat. Thereafter, divide this melting substance among several alembics and little by little pour fresh menstruum upon it, as if to feed and water it only. Do this by first pouring on only two drops, then three, then five, then seven, increasing the amount in this way till the materia does not absorb any more. You will recognize this when you see the solvent coming out as acid as it was at the beginning. Therefore, whenever you distill your imbibed materia, take care that you continue till the phlegma is as acid as before, because this is how the child refuses the nurse's milk when its stomach is full. When the materia has been prepared in this way and converted into an excellent and precious gum, digest it in the steam bath for 30 or 40 days, till it becomes black and has a bad smell like that of liquid pitch. It is from this liquid and black pitch that you must extract, by the same bath, an excellent phlegma which can serve as a proper menstruum for extracting a precious salt from calcined earth, as we will write later. Owing to the continual distillation that you will make of the said pitch on sand, and by finally giving a strong fire above and below through the usual degrees up to a very violent fire, you will extract a red and quite thick oil which, together with the preceding distillations, will. constitute as strong and violent a water as that extracted from wine, and will have the same great power. The philosophers call it water of life (brandy) of Saturn. Its substance is so pure and subtle that it must be kept in a well closed vessel lest it evaporate.

Equipment used in lead acetate work at a 1992 seminar 93kb.

To complete the perfection of this solvent, this water of life of Saturn must be put in a gentle bath, in a long-necked alembic, where the purest spirit of this water will rise imperceptibly till you see the appearance of some lines and filaments through the glass of the head. It is an infallible sign that all of the spirit has risen, and you must therefore stop this distillation and extract this first precious spirit. Preserve it carefully in a cold place and in a well sealed container. After this spirit, a milky phlegma will appear in a stronger bath. It will be much better for washing your calcined materia than the first of which we spoke above. Finally, by a stronger degree of fire, and after changing the receptacle, you will still separate an ardent spirit which will first come out white and watery, then red and oily, but it will be heavy and lie at the bottom of the receptacle. However, if you wish, you can make it go over with a stronger fire.

In regard to the earth or the feces that are left at the bottom of the retorts as a black powder, they can also be dissolved with some fresh distilled vinegar and thus turn into new lapilli of a sticky and gummy consistency, and finally, by means of the above mentioned digestions and distillations, into wonderfully active and burning spirits. There are some who divide this earth into two, but although Isaac (Hollandus) himself adopts this division, I am nevertheless of the opinion that the best and shortest method is to calcine all the earth together and to reverberate it by a gentle flame till it becomes yellow like ochre. When this earth has become yellow due to the cohobation of the phlegmas, the salt can again be separated from it, according to the ordinary rules and operations of the Art.

Having achieved the extraction of this rare and precious salt, take the first salt which you have little by little extracted and which you have preserved. Pour it on 1 oz of the last salt, repeating this imbibition till 1 oz of this salt weighs 3 or 4 oz and has retained the weight of the sal ammoniac of this spirit, till finally the volatile exceeds the fixed. If you work this process exactly, you will find an excellent earth at the bottom. Sublimate it in a very clear and well sealed glass vessel, and you will have the pleasure of seeing the sublimation of a Philosophical Mercury in the form of a fine talc, which you must keep as a most valuable substance.

To crown this work, take 1 part of this Mercury and add it to 4 parts of the above-mentioned spirit or to as much ardent spirit to make of them a solvent for the Sun and the Moon, such as the philosophers imagined were capable of turning them into spirit without destroying their bodies or losing their characteristics. Therefore, wonderful works can be made with this truly philosophical solvent, both for the health of human and metallic bodies. It can even be made with coral and litharge, and in that case you will without doubt make the finest and most harmless of all solvents.

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