A VINDICATION OF CHEMISTRY, AND Chemical Medicines.  
Courteous and Candid Reader,  
CHEMISTRY, is an ART that doth both teach and enable us (for our exceeding good and benefit) to separate Purity from Impurity; Exalt and advance what God and Nature hath given us, to a farther and higher Perfection than we receive it endued with. For all Bodies, more or less, partake of the Grossness and Terrestriety of their Matrices: But after their essential purities are separated from that Terrestriety adhering, which they drew from their Matrices, they make it plain enough by their powerful effects, that it is to this state they ought to be reduced, before they work with Efficacy; and yet they still retain their Character and Internal Idea.  
Now if we shall well and truly consider it; what have we in this curious Nice Age, either for Back or Belly, Pleasure or Necessity, that hath not in some kind or other been obliged to Chemistry, and its beneficial Operations, for that perfection we receive it in? What Calling may be said to have attained to the perfection and height it now Glories in, without its help in some one or other of its (more sublime or trivial Operation.  
Consider our Bread our Beer, Wine, Meat, etc. Or whatever can render our lives happy or satisfactory: And you will find it in one degree or other to pass under the hand of Chemistry, and its various Operations, or Preparations. And can we then be thus Insensibly led to admit its daily help and assistance in things of smallest value; and can we be so stupid, dull, ignorant and blind, as to neglect its assistance in things of greater moment and concern? And not only neglect its friendly advice, but deny its profitable hand in those things, which above all others we most need its help in? Nay, we do not only deny it makes us happy; but we seek by all means possible to disgrace, slander, and make it (and its Professors) contemptible and odious to the whole world. Doubtless these are great follies, and we declare ourselves either very ignorant, or else very Malicious and self-ended.  
Can we with ease and content, admit and allow its favours, (and greedily seek after them) to improve and maintain our Purses and Pleasure, and cannot we admit and embrace its help for the preservation of our Health; without which the other will be of little benefit, and less pleasure? Consider, if Nature be weakened and oppressed, that she cannot accept of her usual and accustomed Food; so as she would, and aught to dispose of it for the supply of her Spirits, and maintaining of her Habitation; and if she cannot in her ordinary course, so play the Chemist, as usual: Doubtless, she is less able to do it, in that which the very name, as well as the nature of it, makes her utterly to abhor, and reject; and if she be not strong enough to separate the Essenses of her daily and accustomed Food, how shall she Extract any thing from her Physic (if given gross) that may give her that rerelief, which her present condition requires and calls for? She [viz. Nature] hath a double work to perform: First, to Extract the Essential part (and to make use of it) and secondly to cast off the Gross as an enemy.  
It would doubtless, therefore (in this ease) be far better to save her the labour of separation in this her weakened condition: For although Nature herself when in health, can digest her Food (when Dressed) and separate the Alimental parts to herself, (and make use of it for Sustentation) and cast off the Gross as useless: Yet her Medicines must be Pure, Digested and separated, and fited for her use: for if she cannot Digest her Food, than not Gross Medicines; her Food when in health may be Gross, because she can dispose of it to advantage; but when Diseased, her Physic must be pure, separated and fit for her use, viz. To Join with the Spirit, or Natural life in man. And in this the Physician is rightly styled, Nature's Handmaid; but not for loading her with more Impurities, but in assistng and helping her to cast off Impurities, by that which is Pure. For of Necessity, either the Physician or Nature must officiate, or act as Chemist, before she can have, or receive what she calls for, and requires for her help and assistance. Who therefore not drowned in Ignorance and Envy, would so strongly oppose so great a Good as Chemistry is Author of?  
For this is the only Art (which by supplying us out of the light of Nature, with Convenient means and particular Natures to separate the pure from the impure) will teach us: First, to heal all Diseases of the Macrocosmical substances, and afterwards by examples and experiments deduced from those exterior Cures, will show us the right and infallible Cure of Diseases in our own Bodies. He that knows not how to purge and heal Metals, how can he restore the decayed, or weakened Radical Balsam in Man, and repair it by Comfortable and Concordant Medicines, to perform perfectly all its appointed functions; which must necessarily be put into action, before any Disease can be expelled: He that knew not what that is in ♁, which purges Gold, how can be come by an effectual and Wholesome Medicine that will purge and cast out those Extrarious peccant causes that afflict and destroy the Body of Man? He that knows not how to fix Arsenic, or to take away the Corrosive nature of a Sublimate, or to Coagulate Sulphureons' Spirits; and by a convenient Specifical Medium to break and dissolve Stones in the greater World, will never in the body of man allay and tame the Arsenical Spirits of the Microcosmic Salt, nor take away the Venomous indispositions of Sulphur, nor dissolve the Stone in the Bladder, and drive it out being dissolved. Now as the Ancient Philosophers; who knew Nature indeed, obtained their noble Medicines by the strict and exact observation of Nature in her own path; how that kind was multiplied by kind, and without putrefaction there could be no Generation: And as they found excellent Medicines, by doing all things in the Metallick Kingdom according to the possibility of Nature: So if you would have a Medicine indeed, although inferior to theirs, whether of the Mineral, Animal, or vegetable kingdom, you must proceed in the same method; for as kind is multiplied by kind, and not without putrefaction; so if you will exalt any concrete to make it a friendly Medicine, it must be in Nature's path; Kind with kind, and that by putrefaction. For the absolute things requisite to one that would conscionably undertake the Sick; are first to know how to unlock those Medicinal Bodies which the Almighty hath created, and how to prepare them, and when, and to whom to apply them; and also how to order and dispose the Patient, so as that he may reap that good from them, which by careful administration of them is expected. And thus will a little quantity of such a well prepared Medicine, manifest itself in the powerful operating and friendly assisting of Nature, to cast off her Enemies (viz. Diseases) with speed and safety. But on the contrary, how loathsome is the very name of (gross and ill prepared Physic unto debilitated Nature! And what's the reason? Doubtless, the hard task she hath had put upon her by it, and even when she is least able to perform it, and hath more need of succour, than of a farther trouble.  
Alas, how shall she receive so great a portion of loathsome Medicines, being weak when even in the greatest of her strength she would (not only) be troubled to take (but also at the sight of) it! and this from a secret sense and antipathy, her natural life or spirit hath against its nausceating, and dull Quality, as well as the greatness of its Quantity.  
Then certainly Nature hath no greater help, nor better remedy, than that true and friendly Spagericks Art or seperater of the Impure, from the Pure and Medicinal part, that so renders it apt, and fit, for her more easy and friendly Reception. Why then should any so Obstinately oppose so clear a truth, and so great a Good as this Excellent Art of Chemistry, in the preparation of Medicines (if compared with the other gross, sluggish and ineffectual foundation of Physic) or why do the Galenists cry out against others in things they understand not? Or why do they Envy us, and speak against our Art, (by which we prepare Pure and harmless Medicines) and yet make use of those unnatural Chemical Medicines, prepared by the power of violent corrosive Fires, Destructive to Nature.  
Our way of preparing vegetable specificks, is by friendly Dissolvents as are in themselves agreeable to the Nature of the thing acted upon, so that in separation the whole Essence of the Concrete is preserved both volatile and fixed, in Odour, Taste and Colour, and the Drossy gross part cast away.  
I say why do they make use of Oil of Vitrial Salt Brimstone, and that dangerous Vomit ♀ Vitae prepared of that high Exalted Poison, viz. Oil, or Butter of ♁ also why do they use, Crocus Metallorum, prepared Steel, Crocus Martis, Flos Sulph. Lapis Infernalis, ☿ Dulcis (falsely so called) Sacharum ♄, Tarbith Minerals (that hellish fluxing Preparation of Mercury) with many other of those churlish unnatural ℞ in the London Dispensatory: Also why do they use Chemical Oils, and Salts of Herbs, Seeds, Berries, Spices, Bark, Woods, Wax, Rozins, Minerals and Stones▪ with their Compound and simple Distilled Waters, all unnaturally separated from their other parts, or principles, as their late learned unlearned W. calls them.  
Doth Nature use these Fires in producting these Natural subjects they thus work upon? (No) Neither must her Children in their Art of Melioration. She uses Fire 'tis true, but 'tis her own, and it is she that furnishes the true Son of Art with his Fire, which is Gentle. Does she separate the Salt Sulphur and Mercury, (in her Acts of Generation) and afterwards join them again. No, she Ferments, Putrifies, Digests, Vivifies and performs all her work and acts of Generation, with one only Fire which Varies the Species according to the Matrix, etc. What can you Gentlemen say for yourselves, that have followed the subtle Doctrine of the Athenians, rather than the plain path of Nature, but do you glory in the Art of your Masters. We will rejoice in the works of our Tutoress Nature, whose Excellency will appear as well by reason, as daily Experience.  
Consider, what is it that gives Eminency and Perfection, to any one thing we esteem as Excellent; we shall find that it is the Purity of it, and that either in the Animal, Vegetable, or Mineral Nature: If we consider then what we are speaking of, viz. Medicines prepared Chemically; we must also conclude its Efficacy and Excellency to proceed from its Purity, or Purified Nature. Let us (I say) consider what it is for, it is to help and restore decayed Nature and her languishing Spirit. Now this Spirit is the most subtle part of Man (I mean not the Rational Soul) therefore no way to be assisted, but by that which is of Purity and likeness with it (viz. Medicines of a subtle penetrating Nature.)  
The Consideration of Nature will tell you, what her Medicines ought to be, and a true consideration of such Medicines, will teach and tell you, what Nature is, so that the quality of the one will inform you what the Nature and Essence of the other aught to be; for the Physician must (if he will Cure a Disease) Administer his Medicines to the Spirit, because the Spirit is the sole Dispenser of Gifts to all the parts and faculties of the body; now as to the Quality of the Midicines you ought to use for Nature's relief, and assistance, is, that they ought to be of most subtle and thin parts. Therein lies the excellency of Chemical Medicines, above others, this Art being able to Exalt the most dull and inactive Medicines, to the greatest of subtlety, and far beyond what nature presents them to us in. Nor doth it thus Exalt their Purity and Efficacy, as to Cure all Diseases both inward and outward only, but Renders the Medicine itself Incorruptible also: whilst the best of Galenical (Mixtures) will hardly keep a year. How then should these poor Dirty, Drossy Medlies, answer those great Ends they Administer them for? And how shall they root out inveterate, fixed and Chronic Diseases? How shall they purify the Impure, or help the Infirm, who are not Cured of their own Crude, corrupt and infirm condition?  
If any shall here object, that the Galenick Medicines are safe and the Chemical quickly Cure, or quickly Kill: Let such objecters know, that they grant, and add more to the praise of Chemistry and Chemical Medicines than they are aware of; for nothing can quickly Cure but what is Efficacious, and fitted for so great a good, which nothing can be, that is not in some measure pure and like unto the nature it shall so assist. Herein do they unawares affirm the Excellency of such Medicines: and then to those that suggest, they as suddenly Kill, I must thus answer them, that they cannot Kill, if administered by skilful Operators (as those must be that know their true preparation) for as Fire will warm at a fit distance; yet if any man shall (to warm another) apply a red hot Iron to his flesh, it will burn him▪ So water will wash a man clean, (if dirtied) and he therefore unadvisedly leap into a deep Well, he may be Drowned. Wine will cheer the heart, if moderately taken, yet many by excess have Killed themselves; but this cannot be attributed to the dangerous, or Killing quality of the Wine, as Wine. So these Medicines we know, use and extol, if administered, or taken by Pints, may destroy Life: But if taken by Drops, Drams, or Spoonfuls, in their Vehicles, they Enliven and help nature to Conquer her Enemies, viz. Diseases. When other Gross, Sluggish and ill prepared Nauseating Mixtures, serve only to stuff up the body (already too much obstructed) with such quantities, which rather hinder then further her own operation, and also to rob Nature of that praise due to her (and the Author ofher) when she hath overcome, both the evil of the Disease, and such Medicines.  
Now having briefly (and I hope to the satisfaction of every unbyased and candid Reader) vindicated Chemistry, and true Chemical Medicines;  
I shall also with the like brevity, give the Reader an account of some Excellent Useful Chemical Medicines prepared by me; which may be of great benefit to all Honest Physicians, Chirurgeons, Apothecaries, Midwives, and others who design good, and desire to be serviceable to their Generation.  

A Catalogue of Chemical Medicines prepared by Richard Fletcher, Living at the Sun in Gutter-lane near Cheapside London.  

Essence of Southernwood, resists Poison, kills Worms, provokes Urine, strengthens the Stomach, and Cures Surfeits. Essence of Wormwood doth the same.  
Essence of Agrimony, helps infirmities of the Liver, Pissing of Blood, and Inward Wounds.  
Essence of M. Mallows, easeth pains of the Store.  
Essence of Marjoram, Cures Diseases of the Brain.  
Essence of Angelica, resists Poison, cheers the Heart.  
Essence of Dill and Fenel, Breeds Milk, stays Vomiting.  
Essence of Magwort, appropriated to Women; as also, is  
Essence of Arrach, Germander, and Peneroyal.  
Essence of Betony, Dissolves the Stone.  
Essence of Briony, Cures Dropsies, and Falling-sickness: so doth Dwarf Elder.  
Essence of Centaury, Cures the Yellow Jaundice; the same doth Succory and Endive.  
Essence of Comfry, and Clery, Strengthens Weak Backs.  
Essence of Couslip-flowers, Cures Palsies.  
Essence of Arsmart, is wonderful in the Stone.  
Essence of of Hyssop, Cures Coughs and Soar-throats.  
Essence of St. john's Wort, Cures all Curable Wounds, both Inward and Outward to Admiration.  
Essence of Lavender, Cures Falling-sickness, and easeth all Pains in the Head, Cures Deafness.  
Essence of Laurel and Bay-Berries, Cures Diseases of the Womb and Bladder, Expels Wind, Cures Pleurisies.  
Essence of Featherfew, is a singular Womb Remedy.  
Essence of Melilot, a wonderful friendly Dissolver of the Stone, and Cleanser of the Reins and Bladder.  
Essence of Bame, Mints, and Rosemary, are wonderful renovating Medicines.  
Essence of Tobacco, is excellent to Cure old Soars.  
Essence of Rue and Savin, Kills Worms, Cures Pleurisies, Expels Birth, and Afterbirth.  
Essence of Sage, is an excellent Medicine for Women to help them to go out their full time.  
Also Essence of tansy is the same.  
Essence of Colts-Foot, Cures Coughs, Shortness of Breath.  
Essence of Scurvygrass, Horse-Redish, Water-Cresses, and Broom, Cures the Scurvy and Dropsy.  
Essence of Chamomel, Cures Pleurisies and Stone.  
Essence of Saffron, powerfully corrects and expels Poison, Cures Fevers, Consumptions, and drives out all offensive matter by Sweat and Urine; and is excellent in the Smallpox, Measles, and all Pestilential Diseases, and is a very great Cordial. The same is Essence of Clovegilliflowers.  
Essence of Elder-flowers, Cures Dropsies, the Stone, and opens Obstructions of the Liver, Spleen and Womb.  
Essence of Walnuts, kills Worms, resists the Pestilence, Cures Convulsions.  
Essence of Nutmegs, Cloves, Mace, and Cinnamon, Strengthens the Brain.  
Essence of Barberries, Quench Thirst.  
Essence of Corriander, Gramwell, Cardamom-seeds, kills Worms, expels Wind, provokes Urine.  
Essence of Benjamin, and Stirax, helps Coughs, Hoarseness and want of Voice, and clears the Skin.  
Essence of Pearl, Coral, Amber, and Amber-grees, are wonderful Restoratives; and Cures all Diseases incident in Women.  
Antiscorbutic Powder and Essence.  
Antivenerial Powder and Essence.  
Stone Dissolving Powder and Essence.  
A Powder which causes Speedy Delivery in Women, a Womb Essence.   
These Excellent Specificks, are all prepared by proper Dissolvents, by which the Volatile and fixed parts are presverved with their Odour, Tincture and Colour, so that what Nature is best pleased with, is here fitted for her reception, that she may dispose of them, for those great uses and ends they were designed, etc.   

Reader,  
I have not given you a full relation of the uses and Virtues of those before mentioned Essences. Therefore I add this;  
Whatever is, or may be attributed to any Vegetable, the same and more may be attributed to the Essence of that Vegetable, for by how much it is exalted in Purity; by so much it ecceeds in Virtue and Excellency.  
And as these noble Remedies are Purer, (than the other common Gross Mixtures, which are usually given in great quantities) so must their Doses, viz. 5. 10. 15. or 20 Drops in Wine, Beer, Ale, Cider.  
Tee, Coffee, or Broth, 3 or 4 times a day, that the active penetrating subtle parts of the Medicine, may expel the Evil, Obnoxious Diseasy Matter, and so restore decayed strength, and bring Nature again into her true Path, by which she may preserve the whole man in health.  
Thus having hinted unto you the Excellencies of true prepared Vegetable Essences, and their safety above others: I shall also speak a little to Mineral Preparation, and so conclude the first part.  
Mineral Medicines have a more universal tendency than Vegetables, they being higher graduated in Nature, and more fixed, and more locked up, and harder to come at, for prudent Nature hath put Bolts and Bars upon her best Jewels, and hath made strong Fences about them lest strangers should espay them, and steal them away, and make an ill use of them, and cry they are ours, and Nature shall obey us, she is our servant, and we will do what we please with her. Therefore she keeps the Keys of her Treasuries herself, but she will vouchsafe to lend them to such of her Children as are willing to be instructed by her, and will promise always to walk in her path, and perform whatever she commands; I say, such a one, and no other, will she fet into her Chambers of Beauty and Riches, but he that hath her Keys, which are friendly Adjuncts, may open Mineral bodies, and extract that solar tincture, which she hath planted in them; for it is this solar Tincture, which is so amicable to Nature; and Cures the most Radicated Diseases, by Enlightening and Enlivening the natural spirit, by which Nature comes both to see her Errors, and amend her Ways; being thus enabled, not only to cast off all offending Matter form in the body, but also changing those Venom's, the cause of such Matter●, and wiping off the Character of the same.  
And such a Medicine as this, is my well known and often tried Powder, called the Eagle of Metals: As also my little Powder viz. the Solar Dove, with which Medicines I have Cured many Diseases, accounted by the Proud Persecuting College Incurable, as hundreds can witness (for me) in this City that I have Cured for Nothing; when they had Spent all they had to satisfy the unreasonable demands of those Physicians they then had made use of (by whom they were rendered more miserable than before) A further account of which I shall give you in my Bock of Cures, which God willing will speedily be Printed.  
Now having attained to the Knowledge and Preparation of such Medicines; is it not good reason I should have the liberty to use them (without Molestation) for the good of the Poor, and the Glory of God, the giver of every good and perfect Gift, to whom be Glory, Amen.  
Whatever I administer to another, I dare be obliged to take the same Dose every day for a year, to prove the safety of my Medicines, and let every Physician do the like, if he dare trust to the safety of his, etc.    

POSTSCRIPT To the READER.  
Courteous Reader,  
SUch is the Envy, Ignorance and Clandestine Art, and Subtle practice of many of the Professors of Physic, Apothecaries, Chirurgeons and others of their friends and fond lovers of the blind Galenical Tribe, to instill into the minds of men a more than ordinary prejudice against Chemistry, and the Professors thereof: Exclaiming against the Art (because they understand it not) and branding the Artists with such marks of Infamy, (as if right took place) they themselves ought to bear; and only because they are Painful, Studious and Industrious men, who labour in the field of Medicine with admirable Success: Hence it is, that they persecute us, and consulting with Demetrius, find cause thus to reason. If this Sect prevail, our Craft by which we get our Wealth, will come to nothing; here lies the stress of the matter: Wealth is that which they seek; and the Health of the Sick is sought by Chemical Physicians. Thus Friendly Reader have I in brief stated the difference between a Mercenary Doctor, and a true Son of Art; that people may no longer mistake Shadows for Substances, and through that error may no longer be rendered willing to be deceived. I was willing to sustain this Labour and Charge; not in the least doubting, but that these Lines (if read without prejudice) may be of good effect to clear the understandings of most men: So, as henceforth they will be able better to judge of the common practice of Galenical Physicians, and consequently for the future be less prejudiced against Chemical Practitioners, than heretofore they have been, etc.  
I intent (God willing) hereafter to publish more small Pieces of the same Subject.  
From my house at the Sun in Gutter-lane near Cheapside London, Octob. 29. 1676.  
FINIS.