George Ripley

p. 186

GEORGE RIPLEY.

GEORGE RIPLEY, an Englishman by nation, and by profession a canon or monk of Britlingthon. His writings were all very good in their kind, being wrote exactly in the style of Bacon, only more allegorical. As he was no physician, he does not meddle with any thing of the preparations of that kind; but treats much of the cure of metals, which in his language is the purification and maturation thereof. He rigorously pursued Geber's and Bacon's principles, and maintained, for instance, with new evidence, that mercury is the universal matter of all metals; that this set over the fire, with the purest sulphur, will become gold, but that if either of them be sick or leprous, i. e. infected with any impurity, instead of gold, some other metal will be produced. He adds, that as mercury and sulphur are sufficient for the making of all metals: so of these may an universal medicine, or metal, be produced for curing of all the sick; which some mistakenly understood of an universal metal, efficacious in all the diseases of the human body.