163 / 374
DRINI^S.
163
commonly
called
a
liqueur.
Its
base
is
an
alcoholate,
composed
of
anise,
coriander,
and
fennel.
It
is
flavoured
with
wormwood,
a
species
of
artemisia,
and
other
plants
containing
absinthin.
It
is
said
to
be
commonly
coloured
with
indigo
and
sulphate
of
coppen
It
is
prepared
chiefly
in
Switzerland,
but
much
of
it
is
made
at
Bordeaux.
Arnold
de
Villeneuve,
in
his
medical
treatise,
written
in
Latin,
On
the
preservation
of
youth
and
the
retarda-
tion
of
age,
has
a
sermon
upon
Golden
water.
"
I
have
not,"
he
says,
"
read
the
properties
of
this
water
in
books
of
distinguished
authority,
but
it
is
to
be
presumed
that,
if
it
exists,
it
is
so
sublime
a
work
that
they
have
concealed
the
method
of
its
preparation,
and
have
even
refused
to
mention
its
name.
Of
gold,
however,
they
have
spoken,
and
set
it
among
cordial
medicines.
They
have
praised
it
for
the
comforting
of the heart
and
for
the
palliation
of
leprosy.
It
is
possible
that
since
we
every
day
find
things
diversified
by
alter*
ation
of
substance,
acquiring
the
operations
of
those
other
things
into
which
they
have
been
transformed,
so
out
of
wine
may
be
made
a
water
of
life
very
differ-
ent
from
wine
both
in
colour
and
in
substance,
in effect
and
in
operation.
And
the
doubt
here
is,
not
about
the
fact,
but
how
it
is
brought
about.
That
the
bodies
of
all
metals
may
be
reduced
into
water
by
the
in*
genuity
of
mankind,
experience
allows
us
not
to
ques-
tion
;
but
the
operation
and
nature
of
those
things
by
which
this
end
is
obtained
it
is
no
easy
matter
to
dis*
cover."
This
golden
water
was
originally
nothing
else
than