"First edition of a rare and highly esteemed treatise on distillation, first communicated before the newly formed German Academia Naturae Curiosorum. The treatise deals with furnaces and the various other methods of distillation. The author discusses his experimentation with metals, minerals, spirits, oils, flowers, and plants, as well as the use of animals and vegetable material in chemistry, medicine, and other arts. Of particular interest is the discussion of plants recently brought from the Americas, such as the "clove-cinnamon." Elsholtz (1623-1688) studied at Padua and was a physician and director of the botanical gardens at Brandenburg. He composed chemical treatises on phosphorus, contributed to the Ephermerides of the Academia, and was interested in infusory surgery and blood transfusions. Ferguson calls him a man with broad medical and scientific interests and experimental tendencies.