Mayerne was another strong advocate of the medicinal virtues of vitriol. According to him it possessed the most diverse properties. It was hot and cold, attenuative and incressant, aperitive and astringent, coagulative and dissolvant, corroborative, purgative, and sudorific.
A multitude of medicines were made from the vitriols. A vitriolum camphoratum was included in the P.L. of 1721 by distilling spirit of camphor from calcined vitriol; but Quincy remarks:—"Its intention I am not acquainted with, nor have ever met with it in prescription." In Dr. Walter Harris's "Pharmacopœia Anti-Empirica," 1683, allusion is made to a remedy made by one Bovius, which consisted of spirit of vitriol, and was designed to lie a universal remedy. Added to an infusion of balm, marjoram, and bugloss, it would cure headache and vertigo; with rose water, fevers; with fumitory water, itch; with fennel water it would restore decayed memory; with plantain water it was a remedy against diarrhœa; and with lettuce water it became a narcotic. "A rare fellow," quaintly comments the doctor. Homberg's narcotic salt of vitriol was a combination of green vitriol and borax made after a very complicated process. The Gilla Vitrioli was a purified white vitriol used as an emetic. Spiritus Vitrioli dulcis was an imitation of Hoffmann's Anodyne. This distilled with hartshorn made the Diaphoretic Vitriol.
One of the precious secrets of the alchemists, occasionally sold to kings and wealthy amateurs, was that of converting iron into copper by means of blue vitriol. A strong solution of the salt was prepared, and an iron blade, or any iron instrument, was immersed in it for a certain time. When taken out it appeared to be a
