This being the Nature of _Sublim’d Mercury_, it may not be amiss to enquire, how it comes to pass, That This same Compound resublim’d with _live Mercury_ in the Proportion of Four Parts to Three, (for the _Sublimate_ will not take up an equal quantity) especially if the work be repeated Three or Four times, looses its Corrosiveness to that Degree as to become not only a Safe, but in many Cases, a Noble _Medicine_. For I do not see that any of the Chymical Writers have hit upon the true Solution of this _Phænomenon_. Here then it is to be considered, That the Action of the _Saline Crystals_ depending upon their Solidity and Largeness, these must necessarily, by every subsequent Sublimation, be broken into smaller and smaller Parts; the _Mercurial Globules_ (for the Reasons given by the _Author_ (122) of the forementioned _Theory of Fevers_) arising more quickly and easily than the _Salts_, quit the Interstices in which they were lodged, and the _Crystalline_ Blades are divided every time more and more by the force of the Fire; whereupon a new Combination of Parts succeeds; and although there be a greater Proportion of the _Mineral_ to the _Salts_ than before, which makes _Dulcify’d Mercury_ Specifically heavier than the _Corrosive_; yet the broken pieces of the _Crystals_ uniting into little Masses of differing Figures from their former Make, those Cutting _Points_ which were before so sharp, are now either quite lost, or at least, by reason of their Bluntness, cannot make Wounds deep enough to be equally mischievous and deadly; and therefore do only Vellicate and Twitch the sensible Membranes of the Stomach to that Degree, as excites them to an Excretion of their Contents and Glandular Juices, upwards or downwards, according as the force of Irritation is greater or less.