The Medico-Chymical Work: Containing Three Treatises or Basilicas, of which the first is entitled the Medical Basilica, the second the Chymical Basilica, the third the Philosophical Basilica

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Original title: Opus Medico-Chymicum: Continens tres Tractatus sive Basilicas; quorum prior inscribitur Basilica Medica, secundus Basilica Chymica, tertius Basilica Philosophica A vast Latin systematic encyclopedia of medicine, chymistry, and philosophy, printed at Frankfurt am Main by Lucas Jennis, organized as three 'basilicas' or graduated halls. The Basilica medica moves from physiology through pathology to therapeutics and Galenic regimen, treating the elements, temperaments, humours, faculties, and the non-natural things (waking and sleep, dreams, exercise, food and drink, and the passions of the soul), with excursions into physiognomy, musical therapy, and moralized diet. The Basilica chymica, in seven books, ascends from gold through silver and mercury, the remaining planetary metals, gems, minerals, and vegetables to animals, setting out numbered protocols for calcination, solution, fixation, sublimation, extraction, and the preparation of quintessences, oils, and potable gold, together with definitions of alchemy, the seminal virtue of metals, and decodings of Hermetic cover-names. The Basilica philosophica treats creation ex nihilo against the eternity of the world, the four worlds, angelology and the nine orders, astrology and planetary influence, and dogmatic theology. Throughout, the author disclaims discovery of new substances and claims instead arrangement, method, and manner of teaching, offering a rule (amussis) by which the discipline's scattered particulars may be ordered and judged, with man as microcosm serving as the joint between the tiers. 👉 Read our introductory primer, full report, and finding guide here 📜 View the original source file This text was transcribed and translated as part of the ExLatinis project—an effort by Leo to make English translations of every published text in Latin in early modern Europe (between 1450 and 1750) available to the public for free online.

• Read our introductory primer, full report, and finding guide here
• View the original source file

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