And according to Matthiolus in his Commentaries upon Dioscorides, it is very profitable against the plague and pestilence, and the chymicall oyle thereof is very availeable (as himselfe affirmeth to have sufficiently proved) against the stone and stopping of urine, and many other outward maladies and diseases, (Andernaeus and Gesner adde to these the Apoplexy) all which, for avoyding of prolixity, I doe here purposely omit.

Neither will I further trouble the Reader with the recitall of divers and sundry excellent remedies, and medicines, found out and made of it in these latter times, by the Spagyricke Physitians, and others:  In so much that Joseph Quercetanus, one of those, is verily of opinion, that out of this one individuall minerall, well and exquisitely prepared, there might be made all manner of remedies and medicines sufficient for the storing and furnishing of a whole Apothecaries shop.

But it will (perhaps) be objected by some one or other in this manner:  If vitrioll, which as most doe hold, is hote and dry in the third degree, or beginning of the fourth, nay, of a causticke quality, and nature (as Discorides is of opinion) should here be predominant, then the water of this fountaine must needs bee of great heat and acrimony; and so become not onely unprofitable, but also very hurtfull for mans use to be drunke, or inwardly taken.

To which objection (not to take any advantage of the answer, which many learned Physitians doe give, viz. that vitrioll is not hot, but cold) I say: 

First, that although all medicinall waters doe participate of those mineralls, by which they doe passe, yet they have them but weakly (viribus refractis) especially when in their passages they touch, and meet with divers others minerals of opposite tempers and natures.

Secondly I answer, that in all such medicinall fountaines, as this, simple water doth farre surpasse and exceed in quantity, whatsoever is therewith intermixed; by whose coldnesse it commeth to passe, that the contrary is scarce, or hardly perceived.  For example, take one proportion of any boyling liquor to 100. or more, of the same cold, and you will hardly find in it any heat at all.  Suppose then vitrioll to be hot in the third degree, it doth not therefore follow, that the water, which hath his vertue chiefly from it, should heat in the same degree.  This is plainly manifest not onely in this fountaine, but also in all others, which have an acide taste, being indeed rather cold, then hot, for the reasons above mentioned.

CHAP. 10.

_=Of the effects, which this fountaine worketh, and produceth in those who drinke of it.=_.

Experience sheweth sufficiently, besides reason, that this water first, and in the beginning cooleth such, as use it:  But being continued it heateth and dryeth; and this for the most part it doth in all, yet not alwayes.  For (as we shall more fully declare afterwards) it effecteth cures of opposite, and quite contrary natures, by the second and third qualities, wherewith it is endowed, curing diseases both hot, cold, dry, and moist.