Mercury's Caducean Rod

William Yworth (- 1715) was an Anglo-Dutch distiller, alchemist, and physician who collaborated with Isaac Newton. He wrote a number of tracts on distilling and alchemy. Two of his alchemical works, Mercury's Caducean Rod (1702) and Trifertes Sagani, or Immortal Dissolvent (1705) appeared under the pseudonym Cleidophorus Mystagogus. Cleidophorus is the Latinized form of the Greek kleidophoros, meaning "key bearer," and Mystagogus is, of course, a Latin term for a mystagogue.

Edited into modern English by Adam McLean.