Vegetable mercury,

In the laboratory, the alchemist follows Nature in her operations volatilizing the Earthy parts of the matter, (such as the salts and coarse oils obtained in the plant work) as well as capturing or fixing the Fire in its more ethereal forms (as in the Vegetable Mercury and volatile essential oils of the plant.) The volatile and fixed materia are united and circulated to create a new and exalted balance of the Fire inherent in the original matter. 

In the Wet Work, the best solvent for separating the essentials is the Mercury of the particular kingdom. In the work on plants we used a Vegetable Mercury to extract or separate our three essentials. We can proceed in the same way with the Mineral and metals work by using the correct type of solvent for the work at hand. 

QUINTA ESSENTIA VEGETABILIUM — the Quintessence of Vegetable Substances, is that which is extracted from the components of vegetable things. It is most generally extracted from the Sap. Quintessence of Wine has the primacy. Lully calls it Vegetable Mercury others. Water of Primal Being, Heaven, Key, etc. 

These qualities led alchemists to infer that the quintessence of wine should be able to preserve living human bodies as well as it preserved meat. Unlike mineral acids, it was also a safe solvent for human ingestion. From this arose the notion that quintessence could be used both as an alchemical medicine for internal use and as an ingredient in the transmutation of metals. This theory was set out in great detail in one of the most influential alchemical treatises of the fourteenth century, the Liber de secretis naturae, seu de quinta essentia (The Book of the Secrets of Nature, or, concerning the Quintessence), attributed to the Majorcan philosopher Raymond Lull (ca. 1232-ca. 1316). Pseudo-Raymond described the quintessence as a vegetable mercury, or resolutive menstmum [23]. 

Common/vernacular names Mayapple, mandrake, American mandrake, devil s apple, wild lemon, and vegetable mercury. 

Air pollutants that present a hazard to livestock, therefore, are those that are taken up by vegetation or deposited on the plants. Only a few pollutants have been observed to cause harm to animals. These include arsenic, fluorides, lead, mercury, and molybdenum. 

Heavy metals on or in vegetation and water have been and continue to be toxic to animals and fish. Arsenic and lead from smelters, molybdenum from steel plants, and mercury from chlorine-caustic plants are major offenders. Poisoning of aquatic life by mercury is relatively new, whereas the toxic effects of the other metals have been largely eliminated by proper control of industrial emissions. Gaseous (and particulate) fluorides have caused injury and damage to a wide variety of animals—domestic and wild—as well as to fish. Accidental effects resulting from insecticides and nerve gas have been reported. 

Mercury in fish has been found in waters in the United States and Canada. Mercury in the waters is converted into methyl mercury by aquatic vegetation. Small fish consume such vegetation and in turn are eaten by larger fish and eventually by humans food with more than 0.5 ppm of mercury (0.5 mg/kg) cannot be sold in the United States for human consumption. 

This procedure has been utihzed to determine metal cations and anions in water sample [48,50,51], titanium in high-speed steel at a concentration level of 25 3 mg/g [22], heavy metals (20 to 400 mg/1) in electroplating waste waters [25], copper and nickel (5 mg/1) in metal electroplating baths on wedge-shaped plates [44], copper, lead, cadmium, or mercury in vegetable juices [29], and nickel (1 to 3.8 mg/1) in electroplating waste water of lock industries [42,47]. 

The zone elution method has been used for quantitative estimation or recovery of heavy metals in plants and vegetable juices [29], mercury (11) in river and waste waters [52], zinc in different environmental samples [46], nickel and copper in alloys [53], zirconium in Mg-Al alloys [22], cobalt, zinc, nickel, and copper in natural water and alloy samples [54], thiocyanate in spiked photogenic waste water [55], and aluminum in bauxite ores [42],... 

Uses Determining refractive index of minerals paint diluent dyed hexane is used in thermometers instead of mercury polymerization reaction medium calibrations solvent for vegetable oils alcohol denaturant chief constituent of petroleum ether, rubber solvent, and gasoline in organic synthesis. 

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