The _Aurum potabile_ is sometime the Entertainment of Conversation, when the poor Alcymists or their vain Pretensions are considered; there being no Humour in any Animal which can alter or dissolve it, no Effect or Operation can be expected from it, it deludes the Eye and Fancy in the Cordial Waters, and on the Bolus and Electuaries, but must pass away sooner or later as it adheres more or less to the Stomach or Bowels, without acting or being acted on in any Part of the Body; the Pills, either purgative or cordial, are as often dismist entire, having been covered with Leaf-Gold, which is able, though thin, to dismiss the most subtil and penetrating Parts of all Humours. The Value of the Leaf is not worth your Enquiry, the Book being sold at a low Price. The Fulminating Powder is a rough violent Medicine, and has been lately neglected, and given Place to others more useful and less dangerous.
Silver and Lunar Pills are as vile and disregardless as Gold, when they are considered with relation to the Cure of Diseases.
The precious Stones have constantly been put into the old Receipts by that Sort of Writers who prescribe every Medicine very faithfully, and design to please and amuse the Readers with the Bulk and Length of the Prescription; but they have been neglected by the practical Authors, who had the Trouble of considering, that no Manner of Vertue could be expected from so hard and therefore impenetrable Bodies; as the Diamond, Ruby, Hyacinth, the Sapphire, the Smargad and Topaz, _&c._ who are not capable of a Dissolution, and of altering or acting upon the Fluids, and as it is most certain that many very cheap Medicines have greater and more observable Effects, it's ridiculous to give a hard gritty Powder, which may for many Reasons corrode and offend the Stomach and Bowels in their Passage.
Among the many Foreign Vegetables imported here, I must take Notice of Sarsaparilla, as it has had the Preference before many others, especially of our own Growth, in many difficult and chronical Cases, will have obtain'd its Credit and Reputation by being in good Company, and by being prescrib'd with the cheapest Drugs, but of the greatest Virtues, _viz._ Guiacum, Sasaphras, China, and the Seeds of many most useful Plants. If it has been by it self beneficial, in the Practice of the _West-Indies_, it has lost its Qualities in the Passage into the colder Climates, being a soft and thin Root, it may evaporate and exhale its most active Parts; many of the late Writers have given this Judgment of it, that it is _nullius Saporis vel Odoris_, of no Smell or Taste.