s manner:
If vitrioll, which as most doe hold, is hote and dry in the third
degree, or beginning of the fourth, nay, of a causticke quality, and
nature (as _Discorides_ is of opinion) should here be predominant, then
the water of this fountaine must needs bee of great heat and acrimony;
and so become not onely unprofitable, but also very hurtfull for mans
use to be drunke, or inwardly taken.

To which objection (not to take any advantage of the answer, which many
learned Physitians doe give, _viz_. that vitrioll is not hot, but cold)
I say:

First, that although all medicinall waters doe participate of those
mineralls, by which they doe passe, yet they have them but weakly
(_viribus refractis_) especially when in their passages they touch, and
meet with divers others minerals of opposite tempers and natures.

Secondly I answer, that in all such medicinall fountaines, as this,
simple water doth farre surpasse and exceed in quantity, whatsoever is
therewith intermixed; by whose coldnesse it commeth to passe, that the
contrary is scarce, or hardly perceived. For example, take one
proportion of any boyling liquor to 100. or more, of the same cold, and
you will hardly find in it any heat at all. Suppose then vitrioll to be
hot in the third degree, it doth not therefore follow, that the water,
which hath his vertue chiefly from it, should heat in the same degree.
This is plainly manifest not onely in this fountaine, but also in all
others, which have an acide taste, being indeed rather cold, then hot,
for the reasons above mentioned.

_CHAP_. 10.

_=Of the effects, which this fountaine worketh, and produceth in those
who drinke of it.=_.

Experience sheweth sufficiently, besides reason, that this water first,
and in the beginning cooleth such, as use it: But being continued it
heateth and dryeth; and this for the most part it doth in all, yet not
alwayes. For (as we shall more fully declare afterwards) it effecteth
cures of opposite, and quite contrary natures, by the second and third
qualities, wherewith it is endowed, curing diseases both hot, cold, dry,
and moist.

Those waters (saith _Renodaeus_) which are replenished with a vitrioline
quality, as those at the _Spaw_, doe presently heale, and (as it were)
miraculously cure diseases, which are without all hope of recovery;
having that notable power, and faculty from vitrioll; by the vertue and
efficacy whereof, they passe through the meanders, turnings, an