Elixir Vitae

Elixir Vitae was the great elixir, known under the various names of the great medicine, the magisterium, the philosopher's stone, etc., for which the alchemists of the 13th to the loth century so ardently searched. The powers ascribed to it were practically unlimited; thus, besides its power of healing all human diseases, it was to convert all metals into gold. Recipes for the preparation of this and other minor elixirs are to be found in various alchemistic writings, but also are so disguised in mystical and symbolic language as to be frequently quite unintelligible.