excellent Mumia[1] comes forth, and a specific so potent that any fresh wound can be healed and consolidated in twenty-four hours by a single ligature.
The second separation is that of fat from flesh. This fatness being separated from human flesh, a most excellent balsam is produced, allaying the pains of gout, of contraction, and others of a like nature, if the members affected be anointed with it while warm. It is also useful for convulsed tendons of the hands or feet, if they are daily anointed with it. It further cures the itch, and all kinds of leprosy. This, therefore, is the chief surgical specific, and of the very first efficacy in all accidents and wounds.
The third separation is that of the watery and phlegmatic moisture with fatness extracted from the bones. For if these two are separated from human bones by Spagyric Art, and according to the degree of distillation, and if, moreover, by the method of calcination they are reduced or burnt to a white ash, and if, lastly, these three be again united in the proper way, so that they are like to butyrus, there will be formed a wonderful arcanum and specific, with which you will be able, without pain, to entirely cure any fracture of the bones after binding them up only thrice, provided only that you treat the fracture by setting it according to the rules of surgical science, and then put on the specific in the form of a plaster. The same also thoroughly cures wounds of the skull, or any contusion of the bones, in the shortest possible time.
The fourth and last separation is that of resins and gums from the skin, intestines, and tendons. For the resin is extracted and separated from these by the degree of extraction according to Spagyric Art, and when coagulated in the rays of the sun it comes out as a clear and transparent paste. When this paste has been prepared, extracted, and separated from the human body according to the prescribed method, a most excellent styptic arcanum and specific issues forth, with which a wound or ulcer can be quickly healed and the lips brought together, just as two sheets of paper are stuck together with paste, if only you apply to the wound two or three drops of that resolved substance. This arcanum, too, is of singular efficacy for burns, and falling off or roughness of the nails, if it be spread over them with a feather. In this way the bare flesh will be covered over with a cuticle.
Many other separations also of one thing or another might be recounted here; but since we have made mention of them in other places, it would be in vain idly to repeat them now.
- ↑ Mumia is that which cures all wounds, that is, sweet mercury. For mercury is extracted both in a sweet and bitter form. The former is adapted to wounds and the latter to ulcers. Mumia is the liquor diffused through the whole body, the limbs, etc., with the strength that is required. It is divided as follows: in flesh, according to the nature of the flesh; in bone, according to the nature of the bone; in the arteries and ligaments, according to their nature; and so also in the marrow, the veins, and the skin. Hence it follows that the mumia of the flesh cures wounds of the flesh, the mumia of the ligaments cures wounds of the ligaments, etc. Thus the body which has sustained an injury carries its own cure with it; the mumia of the aged, however, is deficient in virtue and strength. The corruption of the mumia, which is often occasioned by the mistakes of ignorant physicians, impedes the cure of wounds. . . . The nobler the animal organism is, by so much is the mumia of the organism enhanced in power and efiacacy. The medicaments which benefit wounds perform this operation by attracting the mumia to the place where its office is required.—Chirurgia Minor, Lib. I., c. 1.
