The life of humanity is intimately united with the environment, especially with plants. Knowledge, understanding and use of the vegetable world are a goal full of intellectual and material recompenses. Illness has been and remains an inevitable evil charged on humankind from the beginning of the time and  in this frame, the daily life of humans has developed. The knowledge of the healing properties of plants is an eduring challenge that takes us on a journey of investigation, in order to discover the remedies to our illness.

This knowledge has generally been pursued by individuals ranging from priests, bewitchers, quack doctor, and the like, who have transmitted the remedies and workings generation to generation , to their apprentices and descendants.

Almost 200 medicinal plants and their applications are recorded in the Bible. The papyrus of Ebers, written about 3 500 years ago contains descriptions of illnesses and instructions to treat with plants. The famous Badiano codex written in 1552 by the Xochimilca Indian Martin de la Cruz and translated from the náhuatl to Latin by Juan Badiano in Mexico contains invaluable details of the nature and use of plants.

And from here play the memory in advance and setback, without respecting the time with such names like Hipócrates, Teophastus, Plinius, Galeno and the Alchemists Geber, Boheme, Glauber, Hollandus, Paracelsus, Basil, Urbigerus, Albert Magnus and so much more even our days, who have bequeathed us theory and practice, philosophy and method in order to continue in the "Solve et Coagula" of the daily Spagyrics.

The serious Spagyrist searching for understanding of plants and their active principles, requires a basic knowledge of botany and some grasp of the chemical properties that are present when dealing with plants. This is of vital importance to avoid becoming a blind "recipe mimic" working in complete darkness and ignorance. Alchemy requires great inner preparation and culture and it is not refuge of palliative ignorance that consoles scientific failure. Alchemy is the Maximum Science and the Magnus Art.

Before work is begun you must prepare ahead of time because the materials required could include plants gathered at certain times of the year only, and from far and distant places. For this reason there are very useful simple tests, sensitive, specific, and quick. The special minimum equipment is economic and easy to transport. Preliminary studies require plant samples of 1 to 100 g that can be used as a guide to locate qualitative or quantitativement one or several active principles.

Here is described the most commonly used equipment to be employed at the place of gathering. This is a field laboratory.

In the place of gathering:

Two or three grams of the vegetable material are crushed in a mortar. If they are branches or hard material they become chips.

Material statement is placed in a test tube and adds enough ethanol to the 96% in order to fill the tube until the fifth part of their capacity. Do not use another solvent because in spagyrics we only use the spirit of wine and water, therefore we are only interested in what is can be extracted with this method.

The alcoholic extracts are useful in order to discover the presence of the most important active principles:

Alkaloids with the reagents of Mayer, Dragendorff and túngstic acid.

Other aliquot is diluted in a volume of water twice its size and is agitated by shaking for 30 seconds. If the formed foam remains two minutes there is saponines.

Tannins are detected with solution of jell. Falconoid are located by adding to an aliquot Magnesium and Hydrochloric Acid and observing if there is reddish foam.

In order to investigate if there is essential oil the plant is crushed and smelled for liberated oil. Place some leaves in a test tube and boil with water, observe if there is an increase in the aroma and if there is the formation of oily drops in the water.

The fixed oil, particularly in seeds, drupes and bays can be determined for expression of a well-known weight of these with a filter paper, which is allowed to dry and the diameter of the stain can be assessed.. With a capillary , a drop of color staining Sudan III, is placed in the center (0.5% in 100 ml of ethanol to the 70%), and after the stain is colored for several minutes the diameter is measured again. There is a direct relationship between the diameter of the stains and the percentage of oil in the material.

Preliminary tests in the laboratory:

Quick method for alkaloids: 5 g of dry powdered material or their equivalent in fresh crushed plant mix with sufficient hydrochloric acid to the 1% in order to form a suspension and obtain 2 ml of the filtrate later.

The suspension spills in an Erlenmeyer flask and is placed in Mary’s bath (Baño Maria) at 80o C. Heat 4 hours and shake periodically. Later retire the suspension, cool and filter. If the filtrate is reduced to less than 2 ml add 1% hydrochloric acid to the residual in order to adjust the filtrate to 2 ml.

For separating test, 0.2 ml aliquots of the filtrate with volumes of 0.1 ml of the reagents of Mayer, Wagner, Dragendorff, Sonnenschein and sílicic-túngstic acid.

The results register like abundant (+), moderate (+), scarce (+), doubtful (+) and negative (- ).

Preparation of the reagents:

Mayer: Dissolve 1.36 g of Bichlorure of Mercury in 60 ml of water and 5 g of Potassium Iodide in 10 ml of water. Join the two solutions and complete the solution to 100 ml. Only add some drops because the alkaloids are soluble in excess of reagent. The alkaloids precipitate orange-brown color.

 Wagner: Dissolving 1.27 g of resublimed Iodine and 2 g of Potassium Iodide in 20 ml of water; complete the solution to 100 ml with distilled water. The alkaloids give precipitate brown color.

Dragendorff: Dissolve 8.0 g of Nitrate of Bismuth pent hydrated in 20 ml of Nitric acid density 1.18, that is to say to 30% and 27.2 g of Potassium Iodide in 50 ml of water. Mix the two solutions and let rest 24 hours. Decant the solution and complete with water to 100 ml. The alkaloids give precipitate brown-orange.

Sonnenschein (fosfomolíbdic acid): Prepare a watery solution saturate of Ammonium Molibdate and slowly add saturated disodic phosphate preheated to 40o C until not formed more precipitate. Pick up the precipitate for filtration, wash with sufficient water and go over to a glass and mix with a solution of concentrated Sodium Carbonate. Warm the suspension until all precipitate is dissolved. Later continued heating in Mary´s bath until dry and the ammonia completely detaches. The remainder is dissolved with Nitric Acid and dried again. The new residual is dissolved in 10 times its weight with a mixture of concentrated Nitric Acid and water 1: 9 v/ v. Filter the solution and put it in a well-closed flask. The alkaloids and their salts give precipitate yellow. The reducers give blue color.

Sílicic- Túngstic Acid: Dissolve 5 g of Silicotúngstic Acid in as much 6N Sulfuric Acid as necessary to form 100 ml of solution.

In order to detect Cardiotonic Glycosides, Cianogenétics, Leucoantocianines, Saponines, Triterpenes and another, please contact me via e- mail.