" I remember," writes Mr. Robert Boyle—Experimental Philosophie—"
that the experienc'd chymist, Johannes Agricola, relates how ' he hath
seen an earth digg'd at the Rheinstran, not far from Wester waldt,
which was more inclinable to white than to yellow, and will dissolve
silver better than other menstruums' ; since, as he saith, ' The silver
may thereby be easily made potable, and be prepar'd into a very useful
medicine for the diseases of the head.' " " And, for my part," adds Mr.
Boyle, " I do not much wonder at the efficacy of this, and other such
earths, when I consider that divers of them are imbu'd, as well as
dy'd, with mineral fumes ; or tinctured with mineral juices, wherein
minerals, or metals may lie, as the chymists speak,—in solutis principiis ;
in which form, having never endured the fire, many of their usefullest
parts are more loose, and volatile ; and divers of their vertues less
lock'd up, and more disposed to be communicative of themselves, than
they are wont to be in a more fixed or coagulated state, or when they
have lost many of their finer parts by the violence of the fire."
Metallic Silver—Argentum—in
the form of the finest silver leaf, (rubbed into a powder, together
with dry, inert sugar of milk^ was administered medicinally by
Hahnemann ; and with indisputable benefit. Acting on the leading
principle, which he specially advocated, of determining the diseases in
which any drug substance would most probably prove remedial, by noting
the several symptoms produced by that same drug substance when taken in
toxic, or even poisonous quantities, Hahnemann found this metallic
Silver curative for neuralgic pains in the principal joints ; likewise
against chronic hoarseness, and irritative congestion of the windpipe.
