And indeed, as the earliest Use of _Mercury_ was in _Unguents_ and _Emplasters_, so most of the Prejudices and Out-cries against It are owing to Effects produced this way. For the first attempts of the Cure of _Venereal Maladies_ by this Remedy, were learned from the _Arabians_ (123), who having recommended _Mercurial_ Ointments in the _Lepra_ or _Scabies_, gave a handle to the _Italian_ Physicians to try their Efficacy, in removing the Foulness of the Skin from a new and terrible Contagion; neither were they sparing of their Liniments, which they continued to rub in for 12, 15, nay, sometimes for above 30 Days together (124). So that it is no wonder if they often met with very untoward Symptoms from so severe a Treatment, and if, (as some of them (125) do affirm) they now and then found _Mercury_ in the rotten Bones of their Patients, who had, it may be, suffered too much both from their Disease and their Physician.
Thus much of _Mercury_. Let Us in the next place examine _Arsenick_, about the Nature and Composition of which Authors are very much puzzled.
This, in short, is either _Native_ or _Factitious_, and each of Three sorts, _Yellow_, _Red_, and _White_. The _Native Yellow_ is what the Latins call’d _Auripigmentum_; and this _Olaus Wormius_ (126) makes Threefold. The _Red_ is the _Sandaracha_ of the _Greeks_. The _White_ was not known to the Ancients; and indeed _Theophrastus_ seems only to have known the _Red_; but _Dioscorides_ describes both _Red_ and _Yellow_; _Nicander_ had no Knowledge of either; The only Mineral Poisons He mentions are _Litharge_ and _Ceruss_.
_Orpiment_ and _Sandaracha_ differ only by their greater or lesser Concoction in the Earth; and therefore from _Orpiment_ Boiled in a close Pot Five Hours in a Furnace Fire, is made the _Factitious Sandaracha_, as perfect as the _Natural_ (127).
The _Factitious Yellow_ is made from the Crusts of the _Natural Orpiment_ (128).
The _Native White_ is more rare, but found plentifully in some Silver Mines in _Germany_ (129).
But the _White Factitious_ is of the most common Use of all; and it is, as _Agricola_ tells us, no other than _Orpiment_ again and again sublimed with an equal part of _Fossile Salt_, till it is brought to a Whiteness.