OF THE PROGRESS OF CHEMISTRY UNDER PARACELSUS AND HIS DISCIPLES.
Hitherto we have witnessed only the first rude beginnings, or, as
it were, the early dawn of the chemical day. It is from the time of
Paracelsus that the true commencement of chemical investigations is to
be dated. Not that Paracelsus or his followers understood the nature
of the science, or undertook any regular or successful investigation.
But Paracelsus shook the medical throne of Galen and Avicenna to its
very foundation; he roused the latent energies of the human mind, which
had for so long a period lain torpid; he freed medical men from those
trammels, and put an end to that despotism which had existed for five
centuries. He pointed out the importance of chemical medicines, and
of chemical investigations, to the physician. This led many laborious
men to turn their attention to the subject. Those metals which were
considered as likely to afford useful medicines, mercury for example,
and antimony, were exposed to the action of an infinite number of
reagents, and a prodigious collection of new products obtained and
introduced into medicine. Some of these were better, and some worse,
than the preparations formerly employed; but all of them led to an
increase of the stock of chemical knowledge, which now began to
accumulate with considerable rapidity. It will be proper, therefore,
to give a somewhat particular account of the life and opinions
of Paracelsus, so far as they can be made out from his writings,
because, though he was not himself a scientific chemist, he may be
truly considered as the man through whose means the stock of chemical
knowledge was accumulated, which was afterwards, by the ingenuity of
Beccher, and Stahl, moulded into a scientific form.
Philippus Aureolus Theophrastus Paracelsus Bombast ab Hohenheim (as
he denominates himself) was born at Einsideln, two German miles from
Zurich. His father was called William Bombast von Hohenheim. He was
a very near relation of George Bombast von Hohenheim, who became
afterwards grand master of the order of Johannites. William Bombast
von Hohenheim practised medicine at Einsideln.[143] After receiving
the first rudiments of his education in his native city, he became
a wandering scholastic, as was then the custom with poor scholars.
He wandered from province to province, predicting the future by the
position of the stars, and the lines on the hand, and exhibiting
all the chemical processes which he had learned from founders and
alchymists. For his initiation in alchymy, astrology, and medicine,
he was indebted to his father, who was much devoted to these three
sciences. Paracelsus mentions also the names of several ecclesiastics
from whom he received chemical information; among others, Tritheimius,
abbot of Spanheim; Bishop Scheit, of Stettbach; Bishop Erhart, of
Laventall; Bishop Nicolas, of Hippon; and Bishop Matthew Schacht.
He seems also to have served some years as an army surgeon, for he
mentions many cures which he performed in the Low Countries, in the
States of the Church, in the kingdom of Naples, and during the wars
against the Venetians, the Danes, and the Dutch.
[143] See Testamentum Paracelsi, passim.
There is some uncertainty whether he received a regular college
education, as was then the practice with all medical men. He
acknowledges himself that his medical antagonists reproached him with
never having frequented their schools; and he is perpetually affirming,
that a physician should receive all his knowledge from God, and not
from man. But if we can trust his own assertions, there can be no doubt
that he took a regular medical degree, which implies a regular college
education. He tells us, in his preface to his Chirurgia Magna, that he
visited the universities of Germany, France, and Italy. He assures his
readers, that he was the ornament of the schools where he studied. He
even speaks of the oath which he was obliged to take when he received
his medical degree; but where he studied, or where and when he received
his medical degree, are questions which neither Paracelsus nor his
disciples, nor his biographers, have enabled us to solve. If he ever
attended a university, he must have neglected his studies, otherwise he
could not have been ignorant, as he confessedly was, of the very first
elements of the most common kinds of knowledge. But if he neglected the
universities, he laboured long and assiduously with the rich Sigismond
Fuggerus, of Schwartz, in order to learn the true secret of forming the
philosopher’s stone.
He gives us some details of the numerous journeys that he made, as
was customary with the alchymists of the time, into the mountains of
Bohemia, the East, and Sweden, to inspect the mines, to get himself
initiated into the mysteries of the eastern adepts, to inspect the
wonders of nature, and to view the celebrated diamond mountain, the
position of which, however, he unfortunately forgets to specify.
In the preface to his Chirurgia Magna, he informs us that he traversed
Spain, Portugal, England, Prussia, Poland, and Transylvania; where he
not only profited by the information of the medical men with whom he
became acquainted, but that he drew much precious information from
old women, gipsies, conjurors, and chemists.[144] He spent several
years in Hungary; and informs us that at Weissenburg, in Croatia, and
in Stockholm, he was taught by several old women to prepare drinks
capable of curing ulcers. He is said also to have made a voyage into
Egypt, and even into Tartary; and he accompanied the son of the Kan
of the Tartars to Constantinople, in order to learn the secret of the
philosopher’s stone from Trismogin, who inhabited that capital. This
prodigious activity, this constant motion from place to place, left
him but little leisure for reading: accordingly he informs us himself,
that during the space of ten years he never opened a book, and that his
whole library consisted only of six sheets. The inventory of his books,
drawn up after his death, confirms this recital; for they consisted
only of the Bible, the Concordance to the Bible, the New Testament, and
the Commentaries of St. Jerome on the Evangelists.
[144] “Hispania, Portugallia, Anglia, Borussia, Lithuania, Polonia,
Pannonia, Valachia, Transylvania, Croatia, Illyrico, immo omnibus
totius Europæ nationibus peragratis, undeque non solum apud medicos,
sed et chirurgos, tonsores, aniculas, magos, chymistas, nobiles ac
ignobiles, optima, selectiora ac secretiora, quæ uspiam extarent
remedia, inquisivi acriter.”--_Præfatio Chirurgiæ Magnæ._ Opera
Paracelsi, tom. iii.
We know not at what period he returned back to Germany; but at the
age of thirty-three the great number of fortunate cures which he had
performed rendered him an object of admiration to the people, and
of jealousy to the rival physicians of the time. He assures us that
he cured eighteen princes whose diseases had been aggravated by the
practitioners devoted to the system of Galen. Among others he cured
Philip, Margrave of Baden, of a dysentery, who promised him a great
reward, but did not keep his promise, and even treated him in a way
unworthy of that prince. This cure, however, and others of a similar
nature, added greatly to his celebrity; and in order to raise his
reputation to the highest possible pitch, he announced publicly that he
was able to cure all the diseases hitherto reckoned incurable; and that
he had discovered an elixir, by means of which the life of man might be
prolonged at pleasure to any extent whatever. He began the practice,
which has since been so successfully followed in this country, of
dispensing medicines gratuitously to the poor, in order to induce the
rich to apply to him for assistance when they were overtaken with
diseases.
In the year 1526 Paracelsus was appointed professor of physic and
surgery in the University of Basil. This appointment was given him,
it is said, by the recommendation of Œcolampadius. He introduced the
custom of lecturing in the common language of the country, as is at
present the universal practice: but during the time of Paracelsus, and
long after indeed, all lectures were delivered in Latin. The new method
which he followed in explaining the theory and practice of the art;
the numerous fortunate cures which he stated in confirmation of his
method of treatment; the emphasis with which he spoke of his secrets
for prolonging life, and for curing every kind of disease without
distinction, but still more his lecturing in a language which was
understood by the whole population, drew to Bâle an immense crowd of
idle, enthusiastic, and credulous hearers.
The lectures which he delivered on Practical Medicine still remain,
written in a confused mixture of German and barbarous Latin, and
containing little or nothing except a farrago of empirical remedies,
advanced with the greatest confidence. They have a much greater
resemblance to a collection of quack advertisements than to the sober
lectures of a professor in a university. In the month of November,
1526, he wrote to Christopher Clauser, a physician in Zurich, that
as Hippocrates was the first physician among the Greeks, Avicenna
among the Arabians, Galen among the Pergamenians, and Marsilius among
the Italians, so he was beyond dispute the greatest physician among
the Germans. Every country produces an illustrious physician, whose
medicines are adapted to the climate in which he lived, but not suited
to other countries. The remedies of Hippocrates were good to the
Greeks, but not suitable to the Germans; thus it was necessary that
an inspired physician should spring up in every country, and that he
was the person destined to teach the Germans the art of curing all
diseases.[145]
[145] See the dedication to his treatise _De Gradibus et
Compositionibus Receptorum et Naturalium_. Opera Paracelsi, vol. ii.
p. 144. I always refer to the folio edition of Paracelsus’s works, in
three volumes, published at Geneva in 1658, by M. de Tournes, which is
the edition in my possession.
Paracelsus began his professorial career by burning publicly, in his
class-room, and in the presence of his pupils, the works of Galen
and Avicenna, assuring his hearers that the strings of his shoes
possessed more knowledge than those two celebrated physicians. All the
universities united had not, he assured them, as much knowledge as was
contained in his own beard, and the hairs upon his neck were better
informed than all the writers that ever existed put together. To give
the reader an idea of the arrogant absurdity of his pretensions, I
shall translate a few sentences of the preface to his tract, entitled
“Paragranum,” where he indulges in his usual strain of rodomontade:
“Me, me you shall follow, you Avicenna, you Galen, you Rhazes, you
Montagnana, you Mesue. I shall not follow you, but you shall follow me.
You, I say, you inhabitants of Paris, you inhabitants of Montpelier,
you Suevi, you Misnians, you inhabitants of Cologne, you inhabitants of
Vienna; all you whom the Rhine and the Danube nourish, you who inhabit
the islands of the sea; you also Italy, you Dalmatia, you Athens, you
Greek, you Arabian, you Israelite--I shall not follow you, but you
shall follow me. Nor shall any one lurk in the darkest and most remote
corner whom the dogs shall not piss upon. I shall be the monarch, the
monarchy shall be mine. If I administer, and I bind up your loins, is
he with whom you are at present delighted a Cacophrastus? This ordure
must be eaten by you.”
“What will your opinion be when you see your Cacophrastus constituted
the chief of the monarchy? What will you think when you see the sect
of Theophrastus leading on a solemn triumph, if I make you pass under
the yoke of my philosophy? your Pliny will you call Cacopliny, and your
Aristotle, Cacoaristotle? If I plunge them together with your Porphyry,
Albertus, &c., and the whole of their compatriots into my _necessary_.”
But the terms become now so coarse and indelicate, that I cannot bring
myself to proceed further with the translation. Enough has been given
to show the extreme arrogance and folly of Paracelsus.
So far, however, was this impudence and grossness from injuring the
interest of Paracelsus, that we are assured by Ramus and Urstisius
that it contributed still further to increase it. The coarseness
of his language was well suited to the vulgarity of the age; and
his arrogance and boasting were considered, as usual, as a proof of
superior merit. The cure which he performed on Frobenius, drew the
attention of Erasmus himself, who consulted him about the diseases
with which he was afflicted; and the letters that passed between them
are still preserved. The epistle of Paracelsus is short, enigmatical,
and unintelligible; that of Erasmus is distinguished by that clearness
and elegance which characterize his writings.[146] But Frobenius died
in the month of October, 1527, and the antagonists of Paracelsus
attributed his death (and probably with justice) to the violent
remedies which had been administered to a man whose constitution had
been destroyed by the gout.
[146] Opera Paracelsi, i. 485.
His death contributed not a little to tarnish the glory of Paracelsus:
but he suffered the greatest injury from the habits of intoxication
in which he indulged, and from the vulgarity of the way in which he
spent his time. He hardly ever went into his class-room to deliver
a lecture till he was half intoxicated, and scarcely ever dictated
to his secretaries till he had lost the use of his reason by a too
liberal indulgence in wine. If he was summoned to visit a patient, he
scarcely ever went but in a state of intoxication. Not unfrequently he
passed the whole night in the alehouse, in the company of peasants,
and when morning came, was quite incapable of performing the duties
of his station. On one occasion, after a debauch, which lasted the
whole night, he was called next morning to visit a patient; on
entering the room, he inquired if the sick person had taken any thing:
“Nothing,” was the answer, “except the body of our Lord.” “Since you
have already,” says he, “provided yourself with another physician, my
presence here is unnecessary,” and he left the apartment instantly.
When Albertus Basa, physician to the king of Poland, visited Paracelsus
in the city of Basel, he carried him to see a patient whose strength
was completely exhausted, and which, in his opinion, it was impossible
to restore; but Paracelsus, wishing to make a parade of his skill,
administered to him three drops of his laudanum, and invited him to
dine with him next day.[147] The invitation was accepted, and the sick
man dined next day with his physician.
[147] There were two laudanums of Paracelsus; one was _red oxide of
mercury_, the other consisted of the following substances: Chloride
of antimony, 1 ounce; hepatic aloes, 1 ounce; rose-water, ½ ounce;
saffron, 3 ounces; ambergris, 2 drams. All these well mixed.
Towards the end of the year 1527 a disgraceful dispute into which he
entered brought his career, as a professor, to a sudden termination.
The canon Cornelius, of Lichtenfels, who had been long a martyr to
the gout, employed him as his physician, and promised him one hundred
florins if he could cure him. Paracelsus made him take three pills of
laudanum, and having thus freed him from pain, demanded the sum agreed
upon; but Lichtenfels refused to pay him the whole of it. Paracelsus
summoned him before the court, and the magistrate of Basle decided
that the canon was bound to pay only the regular price of the medicine
administered. Irritated at this decision, our intoxicated professor
uttered a most violent invective against the magistrate, who threatened
to punish him for his outrageous conduct. His friends advised him to
save himself by flight. He took their advice, and thus abdicated his
professorship. But, by this time, his celebrity as a teacher had been
so completely destroyed by his foolish and immoral conduct, that he
had lost all his hearers. In consequence of this state of things, his
flight from Basle produced no sensation whatever in that university.
Paracelsus betook himself, in the first place, to Alsace, and sent
for his faithful follower, the bookseller, Operinus, together with
the whole of his chemical apparatus. In 1528 we find him at Colmar,
where he recommenced his ambulating life of a theosophist, which he
had led during his youth. His book upon syphilis, known at that time
by the name of Morbus Gallicus, was dedicated at Colmar, to the chief
magistrate of Colmar, Hieronymus Bonerus.[148] In 1531 he was at
Saint-Gallen; in 1535, at Pfeffersbade, and in 1536, at Augsburg, where
he dedicated his Chirurgia Magna to Malhausen. At the request of John
de Leippa, Marshal of Bohemia, he undertook a journey into Moravia;
as that nobleman, having been informed that Paracelsus understood
the method of curing the gout radically, was anxious to put himself
under his care. Paracelsus lived for a long time at Kroman, and its
environs. John de Leippa, instead of receiving any benefit from the
medicines administered to him, became daily worse, and at last died.
This was the fate also of the lady of Zerotin, in whom the remedies of
Paracelsus produced no fewer than twenty-four epileptic fits in one
day. Paracelsus, instead of waiting the disgrace with which the death
of this lady would have overwhelmed him, announced his intention of
going to Vienna, that he might see how they would treat him in that
capital.
[148] Opera Paracelsi, iii, 101.
It is said, that from Vienna he went into Hungary; but in 1538, we find
him in Villach, where he dedicated his Chronica et Origo Carinthiæ
to the states of Carinthia.[149] His book, De Natura Rerum, had
been dedicated to Winkelstein, and the dedication is dated also at
Villach, in the year 1537.[150] In 1540 he was at Mindelheim, and in
1541, at Strasburg, where he died, in St. Stephen’s hospital, in the
forty-eighth year of his age.
[149] Opera Paracelsi, i. 243.
[150] Ibid., ii. 84.
To form an accurate idea of this most extraordinary man, we must attend
to his habits, and to the situation in which he was placed. He had
acquired such a habit of moving about, that he assures us himself he
found it impossible for him to continue for any length of time in one
place. He was always surrounded by a number of followers, whom neither
his habits of intoxication, nor the foolish and immoral conduct in
which he was accustomed to indulge, could induce to forsake him. The
most celebrated of these was Operinus, a printer at Basle, on whom
Paracelsus lavishes the most excessive praises, in his book De Morbo
Gallico. But Operinus loaded his master with obloquy, being provoked
at him because he had not made him acquainted with the secret of the
philosopher’s stone, as he had promised to do. We must therefore be
cautious in believing the stories that he relates to the discredit of
his master. We know the names of two others of his followers; Francis,
who assures us that Paracelsus was devoted to the transmutation of
metals; and George Vetter, who considered him as a magician; as was the
opinion also of Operinus. Paracelsus himself, speaks of Dr. Cornelius,
whom he calls his secretary, and in honour of whom he wrote several
of his libels. Other libels are dedicated to Doctors Peter, Andrew,
and Ursinus, to the licentiate Pancrace, and to Mr. Raphael. On this
occasion he complains bitterly of the infidelity of his servants, who,
he says, had succeeded in stealing from him several of his secrets;
and had by this means been enabled to establish their reputation. He
accuses equally the barbers and bathers that followed him, and is no
less severe upon the physicians of every country through which he
travelled.
When we attempt to form an accurate conception of the medical and
philosophical opinions of this singular man, we find ourselves beset
with almost insurmountable difficulties. His statements are so much
at variance with each other, in his different pieces, and so much
confusion reigns with respect to the order of publication, that we know
not what to fix on as his last and maturest opinions. His style is
execrable; filled with new words of his own coining, and of mysticisms
either introduced to excite the admiration of the ignorant, or from
the fanaticism and credulity of the writer, who was undoubtedly, to a
considerable extent, the dupe of his own impostures. That he was in
possession of the philosopher’s stone, or of a medicine capable of
prolonging life to an indefinite length, as he all along asserted, he
could not himself believe; but he had boasted so long and so loudly of
his wonderful cures, and of the efficacy of his medicines, that there
can be no doubt that he ultimately placed implicit faith in them. The
blunders of the transcribers whom he employed to copy his works, may
perhaps account for some of the contradictions which they contain.
But how can we look for a regular system of opinions from a man who
generally dictated his works when in a state of intoxication, and thus
laboured under an almost constant deprivation of reason.
His obscurity was partly the effect of design, and no doubt was
intended to exalt the notions entertained of his profundity. He uses
common words in new significations, without giving any indication
of the change which he introduced. Thus _anatomy_, in the writings
of Paracelsus, signifies not the dissection of dead animals to
determine their structure, but it means the nature, force, and
magical designation of a thing. And as, according to the Platonic and
Cabalistic theory, every earthly body is formed after the model of a
heavenly body, Paracelsus calls _anatomy_ the knowledge of that model,
of that ideal, or of that paradigm after which all things are created.
He terms the fundamental force of a thing _a star_, and defines alchymy
the art of drawing out the stars of metals. The star is the source of
all knowledge. When we eat, we introduce into our bodies _the star_,
which is then modified, and favours nutrition.
It is probable that many of his obscure and unintelligible expressions
are the fruit of ignorance. Thus he uses the term _pagoyus_, instead
of _paganus_. He gives the name of _pagoyæ_ to the four _entities_,
or causes of diseases, founded on the influence of the stars, to the
elementary qualities; to the occult qualities, and to the influence
of spirits; because these had been already admitted by the _Pagans_.
But the fifth _entity_, or cause of disease, which has God immediately
for its author, is _non pagoya_. The _undimia_ of Paracelsus is our
_œdema_; only he applies the name to every kind of dropsy. The Latin
word _tonitru_, we find is declined by Paracelsus. Thus he says, _lapis
tonitrui_. The well-known line of Ovid,
Tollere nodosam nescit medicina podagram,
He travestied into
Nescit tartaream Roades curare podagram.[151]
[151] Opera Paracelsi, i. 328.
_Roades_, he says, means medicines for horses; and if any person wishes
a more elegant verse, he may make it for himself.[152] He employs,
also, a great number of words to which no meaning whatever can be
attached; and to which, in all probability, he himself had affixed none.
[152] “Qui elegantiorem optat, ille eum condat.”--_Ibid._
As is the case with all fanatics, he treated with contempt every
kind of knowledge acquired by labour and application; and boasted
that his wisdom was communicated to him directly by God Almighty.
The theosophist who is worthy of partaking of the divine light, has
no occasion for adopting a positive religion, nor of subjecting
himself to any kind of religious ceremony. The divine light within,
which assimilates him to the Deity, more than compensates for all
these vulgar usages, and raises the illuminated votary far above the
beggarly elements of external worship. Accordingly, Paracelsus has been
accused of treating the public worship of the Deity with contempt. Not
satisfied with the plain sense of the book, he attempted to explain
in a mystical manner the words and syllables of the Bible. He accused
Luther of not going far enough. “Luther,” says he, “is not worthy of
untying the strings of my shoes: should I undertake a reformation,
I would begin by sending the pope and the reformers themselves to
school.” God, says Paracelsus, is the first and most excellent of
writers. The Holy Scripture conducts us to all truth, and teaches us
all things. But medicine, philosophy, and astronomy, are among the
number of things. Therefore, when we want to know what magical medicine
is, we must consult the Apocalypse. The Bible, with its paraphrases,
is the key to the theory of diseases. It puts it in our power to
understand St. John, who, like Daniel, Ezekiel, Moses, &c., was a
magician, a cabalist, a diviner. The first duty of a physician is to
study the Cabala, without which he must every moment commit a thousand
blunders. “Learn,” says he, “the cabalistic art, which includes under
it all the others.” “Man invents nothing, the devil invents nothing;
it is God alone who unveils to us the light of nature.” “God honoured
at first with his illumination the blind pagans, Apollo, Æsculapius,
Machaon, Podalirius, and Hippocrates, and imparted to them the genius
of medicine; their successors were the sophists.” One would suppose,
from this passage, that Paracelsus had read and studied Hippocrates,
and that he held him in high estimation. But the commentaries which
he has left on some of the aphorisms, show evidently that he did not
even understand the Greek physician. “The compassion of God,” says he,
“is the only foundation of medical science, and not a knowledge of the
great masters, or of the writings which they have left in Greek and
Latin.” “God often acts in dreams by the light of nature, and points
out to man the manner of curing diseases.” “This knowledge renders
all those objects visible which would otherwise escape the sight;
and when faith is joined with it, nothing is then impossible to the
theosophist, who may transport the ocean to the top of Mount Ætna, and
Olympus into the Red Sea.” Paracelsus predicts that by the year 1590
Christian theosophy would be generally spread over the world, and that
the Galenical schools would be almost or entirely overthrown.
We find in Paracelsus some traces of the opinions of the Gnostics and
Arians, who considered Christ as the first emanation of the Deity. He
calls the first man _parens hominis_; and makes all spirits emanate
from him. He is the _limbus minor_, or the last creature, into whom
enters the great _limbus_, or the seed of all the creatures, the
infinite being. All the sciences, and all the arts of man, are derived
from this great _limbus_; and he who can sink himself in the little
_limbus_, that is to say, in Adam, and who can communicate by faith
with Jesus Christ, may invoke all _spirits_. Those who owe their
science to this _limbus_, are the best informed; those who derive it
from the stars, occupy the last rank; and those who owe it to the light
of nature, are intermediate between the preceding. Jesus Christ, in his
capacity of _limbus minor_ and first man, being always an emanation of
the Divinity; and, consequently, a subordinate personage. These ideas
explain to us why Paracelsus passed for an Arian, and was supposed not
to believe in the Divinity of Jesus Christ. He was of opinion that the
faithful performed miracles, and operated magical cures by their simple
confidence in God the Father, and not by their faith in Christ; but he
adds, however, that we ought to pray to Jesus, in order to obtain his
intercession.
From the preceding attempt to explain the opinions of Paracelsus, it
will be evident to the reader that he was both a fanatic and impostor,
and that his theory (if such a name can be given to the reveries of
a drunkard), consisted in uniting medicine with the doctrines of the
Cabala. A few more observations will be necessary to develop his dogmas
still further.
Every body, in his opinion, and man in particular, is double,
consisting of a material and spiritual substance.[153] The
spiritual, which may be called the _sideric_, results from the
celestial influences; and we may trace after it a figure capable of
producing all kinds of magical effects. When we can act upon the
body itself, we act at the same time upon the spiritual form by
characters and conjurations.[154] Yet, in another passage, he blames
all magical ceremonies, and ascribes them to want of faith. The
celestial intelligences impress upon material bodies certain signs,
which manifest their influence. The perfection of art consists in
understanding the meaning of these signs, and in determining from them
the nature, qualities, and essence of a body. Adam, the first man, had
a perfect knowledge of the Cabala; he could interpret the signatures
of all things. It was this which enabled him to assign to the animals
names which suited them best. A man who renounces all sensuality, and
is blindly obedient to the will of God, is capable of taking a share
in the actions which celestial intelligences perform; and consequently
is possessed of the philosopher’s stone. Never does he want any thing;
all creatures in earth and in heaven are obedient to him; he can cure
all diseases, and prolong his life as long as he pleases; because he
possesses the tincture which Adam and the patriarch’s before the flood
employed to prolong the term of their existence.[155] Beelzebub, the
chief of the demons, is also subject to the power of magic: and who can
blame the theosophist for believing in the devil? He ought, however,
to take care to prevent this malignant spirit from commanding him.
Paracelsus was often wont to say, “If God does not aid me, the devil
will help me.”
[153] Archidoxorum, lib. i. Opera Paracelsi, ii. 4.
[154] De longa Vita. Opera Paracelsi, ii. 46.
[155] Archidoxorum, lib. viii. Opera Paracelsi, ii. 29. In this book
he gives the method of preparing the elixir of life. It seems to have
been nothing else than a solution of _common salt_ in water; for the
quintessence of gold, with which this solution was to be mixed, was
doubtless an imaginary substance.
Pantheism was one of the principal dogmas of the Cabala; and Paracelsus
adopts it in all its grossness. He affirms perpetually that every thing
is animated in the universe; that every thing which exists, eats,
drinks, and voids excrements: even minerals and liquids take food and
void the digested remains of their nourishment.[156] This opinion
leads necessarily to the admission of a great number of spiritual
substances, intermediate between material and immaterial in every part
of the sublunary world, in water, air, earth, and fire; who, as well
as man, eat, drink, converse, beget children; but which approach pure
spirits in this, that they are more transparent, and infinitely more
agile than all other animal bodies. Man possesses a soul, of which
these pure spirits are destitute. Hence it happens that these spiritual
substances are at once body and spirit without a soul. When they die
(for like the human race they are subject to death), no soul remains.
Like us they are exposed to diseases. Their names vary according to the
places that they occupy. When they inhabit the air, they are called
_sylphs_; when the water, _nymphs_; when the earth, _pigmies_; when the
fire, _salamanders_.[157] The inhabitants of the waters are also called
_undinæ_, and those of the fire _vulcani_. The sylphs approach nearest
to our nature, as they live in the air like us. The sylphs, nymphs,
and pigmies, sometimes obtain permission from God to make themselves
visible, to converse with men, to indulge in carnal pleasures, and
to produce children. But the salamanders have no relation to man.
These spiritual beings are acquainted with the future, and capable of
revealing it to man. They appear under the form of _ignes fatui_. We
have also the history of the fairies and the giants; and are told how
these spiritual beings are the guardians of concealed treasures; and
how these sylphs, nymphs, pigmies, and salamanders, may be charmed, and
their treasures taken from them.
[156] Modus Pharmacandi. Opera Paracelsi, i. 811.
[157] Liber de Nymphis, Sylphis, Pygmæis, et Salamandris, et de ceteris
Spiritibus. Opera Paracelsi, ii. 388. If the reader can understand this
singular book, his sagacity will be greater than mine.
This division of man into body and spirit, and of the things of nature
into visible and invisible, has in all ages of the world, been adopted
by fanatics, because it enabled them to explain the history of ghosts,
and a thousand similar prejudices. Hence the distinction between soul
and spirit, which is so very ancient; and hence the three following
harmonies to which the successors of Paracelsus paid a particular
attention:
_Soul_, _Spirit_, _Body_,
_Mercury_, _Sulphur_, _Salt_,
_Water_, _Air_, _Earth_.
The will and the imagination of man acts principally by means of the
spirit. Hence the reason of the efficacy of sorcery and magic. The
_nævi materni_ are the impressions of these _vice-men_, and Paracelsus
calls them _cocomica signa_. The _sideric_ body of man draws to him,
by imagination, all that surrounds him, and particularly the stars,
on which it acts like a magnet. In this manner, women with child, and
during the regular period of monthly evacuation, having a diseased
imagination, are not only capable of poisoning a mirror by their
breath, but of injuring the infants in their wombs, and even also of
poisoning the moon. But it seems needless to continue this disagreeable
detail of the absurd and ridiculous opinions which Paracelsus has
consigned to us in his different tracts.
The Physiology of Paracelsus (if such a name can be applied to his
reveries) is nothing else than an application of the laws of the
Cabala to the explanation of the functions of the body. There exists,
he assures us, an intimate connexion between the sun and the heart,
the moon and the brain, Jupiter and the liver, Saturn and the spleen,
Mercury and the lungs, Mars and the bile, Venus and the kidneys. In
another part of his works, he informs us that the sun acts on the
umbilicus and the middle parts of the abdomen, the moon on the spine,
Mercury on the bowels, Venus on the organs of generation, Mars on the
face, Jupiter on the head, and Saturn on the extremities. The pulse is
nothing else than the measure of the temperature of the body, according
to the space of the six places which are in relation to the planets.
Two pulses under the sole of the feet belong to Saturn and Jupiter,
two at the elbow to Mars and Venus, two in the temples to the moon and
mercury. The pulse of the sun is found under the heart. The _macrocosm_
has also seven pulses, which are the revolutions of the seven planets,
and the irregularity or intermittence of these pulses, is represented
by the eclipses. The moon and Saturn are charged in the macrocosm with
thickening the water, which causes it to congeal. In like manner the
moon of the microcosm, that is to say the brain, coagulates the blood.
Hence _melancholy persons_, whom Paracelsus calls _lunatics_, have a
thick blood. We ought not to say of a man that he has such and such
a complexion; but that it is Mars, Venus, &c., so that a physician
ought to know the planets of the microcosm, the arctic and antarctic
pole, the meridian, the zodiac, the east and the west, before trying
to explain the functions or cure the diseases.[158] This knowledge is
acquired by a continual comparison of the macrocosm with the microcosm.
What must have been the state of medicine at the time when Paracelsus
wrote, when the propagator of such opinions could be reckoned one of
the greatest of its reformers?
[158] Paragrani Alterius, tract. ii. Opera Paracelsi, i. 235. The
reader who has the curiosity to consult this tract, will find abundance
of similar stuff, which I did not think worth translating.
The system of Galen had for its principal basis the doctrine of
the four elements, _fire_, _air_, _water_, and _earth_. Paracelsus
neglected these elements, and multiplied the substances of the
disease itself. He admits, strictly speaking, three or four elements;
namely, the _star_, the _root_, the _element_, the _sperm_, which
he distinguishes by the name of the _true seed_. All these elements
were originally confounded together in the _chaos_ or _yliados_. The
_star_ is the active force which gives form to matter. The _stars_
are reasonable beings addicted to sodomy and adultery, like other
creatures. Each of them draws at pleasure out of the _chaos_, the
plant and the metal to which it has an affinity, and gives a _sideric_
form to their _root_. There are two kinds of _seed_; the _sperm_
is the vehicle of the true seed. It is engendered by speculation,
by imagination, by the power of the _star_. The occult, invisible,
_sideric_ body produces the _true seed_, and the Adamic man secretes
only the visible envelope of it. Putrefaction cannot give birth to
a new body: the seed must pre-exist, and it is developed during
putrefaction by the power of the stars. The generation of animals is
produced by the concourse of the infinite number of seeds which detach
themselves from all parts of the body. Thus the seed of the nose
reproduces a nose, that of the eye the eye, and so on.
With respect to the elements themselves, Paracelsus admits occasionally
their influence on the functions of the body, and the theory of
diseases; but he deduces the faculties which they possess from the
_stars_. It was he that first shook the doctrine of the four elements,
originally contrived by Empedocles. Alchymy had introduced another set
of elements, and the alchymists maintained that salt, sulphur, and
mercury, were the true elements of things. Paracelsus endeavoured to
reconcile these chemical elements with his cabalistic ideas, and to
show more clearly their utility in the theory of medicine. He invented
a _sideric salt_, which can only be perceived by the exquisite senses
of a theosophist, elevated by the abnegation of all gross sensuality
to a level with pure and spiritual demons. This _salt_ is the cause of
the consistence of bodies, and it is it which gives them the faculty of
being reproduced from their ashes.
Paracelsus imagined also a _sideric sulphur_, which being vivified
by the influence of the stars, gives bodies the property of growing,
and of being combustible. He admits also a _sideric mercury_, the
foundation of fluidity and volatilization. The concourse of these three
substances forms the body. In different parts of his works, Paracelsus
says, that the _elements_ are composed of these three principles.
In plants he calls the salt _balsam_, the sulphur _resin_ and the
mercury _gotaronium_. In other passages he opposes the assertion of
the Galenists, that _fire_ is _dry_ and _hot_, _air cold_ and _moist_,
_earth dry_ and _cold_, _water moist_ and _cold_. Each of these
elements, he says, is capable of admitting all qualities, so that in
reality there exists a _dry water_, a _cold fire_, &c.
I must not omit another remarkable physiological doctrine of
Paracelsus, namely, that there exists in the stomach a demon called
_Archæus_, who presides over the chemical operations which take place
in it, separating the poisonous from the nutritive part of food, and
furnishing the alimentary substances with the tincture, in consequence
of which they become capable of being assimilated. This _ruler of the
stomach_, who changes bread into blood, is the type of the physician,
who ought to keep up a good understanding with him, and lend him his
assistance. To produce a change in the humours ought never to be the
object of the true physician, he should endeavour to concentrate all
his operations on the stomach and the ruler who reigns in it. This
Archæus to whom the name of _Nature_ may also be given, produces all
the changes by his own power. It is he alone who cures diseases. He has
a _head_ and _hands_, and is nothing else than the _spirit of life_,
the _sideric body_ of man, and no other spirit besides exists in the
body. Each part of the body has also a peculiar stomach in which the
secretions are elaborated.
There are, he informs us, five different causes of diseases. The first
is the _ens astrorum_. The constellations do not immediately induce
diseases, but they alter and infect the air. This is what, properly
speaking constitutes the _entity of the stars_. Some constellations
_sulphurize_ the atmosphere, others communicate to it _arsenical_,
_saline_, or _mercurial_ qualities. The arsenical astral entities
injure the blood, the mercurial the head, the saline the bones and
the vessels. Orpiment occasions tumours and dropsies, and the _bitter
stars_ induce fever.
The second morbific cause is the _ens veneni_, which proceeds from
alimentary substances: when the archeus is languid putrefaction
ensues, either _localiter_ or _emuncturaliter_. This last takes place
when those evacuations, which ought to be expelled by the nose, the
intestines, or the bladder, are retained in the body. Dissolved mercury
escapes through the pores of the skin, white sulphur by the nose,
arsenic by the ears, sulphur diluted with water by the eyes, salt in
solution by the urine, and sulphur deliquesced by the intestines.
The third morbific cause of disease is the _ens naturale_; but
Paracelsus subjects to the ens astrorum the principles which the
schools are in the habit of arranging among the number of natural
causes. The _ens spirituale_ forms the fourth species and the _ens
deale_ or _Christian entity_ the fifth. This last class comprehends all
the immediate effects of divine predestination.
It would lead us too far if I were to point out the strange methods
which he takes to discover the cause of diseases. But his doctrine
concerning _tartar_ is too important, and does our fanatic too much
credit to be omitted. It is without doubt the most useful of all the
innovations which he introduced. _Tartar_ according to him, is the
principle of all the maladies proceeding from the thickening of the
humours, the rigidity of the solids, or the accumulation of earthy
matter. Paracelsus thought the term _stone_ not suitable to indicate
that matter, because it applies only to one species of it. Frequently
the principle proceeds from mucilage, and mucilage is tartar. He calls
this principle _tartar_ (_tartarus_) because it burns like hellfire,
and occasions the most dreadful diseases. As _tartar_ (_bitartrate of
potash_) is deposited at the bottom of the wine-cask, in the same way
_tartar_ in the living body is deposited on the surface of the teeth.
It is deposited on the internal parts of the body when the archæus acts
with too great impetuosity and in an irregular manner, and when it
separates the nutritive principle with too much impetuosity. Then the
saline spirit unites itself to it and coagulates the earthy principle,
which is always present, but often in the state of _materia prima_
without being coagulated.
In this manner tartar, in the state of _materia prima_, may be
transmitted from father to son. But it is not hereditary and
transmittable when it has already assumed the form of gout, of renal
calculus, or of obstruction. The saline spirit which gives it its form,
and causes its coagulation, is seldom pure and free from mixture;
usually it contains alum, vitriol, or common salt; and this mixture
contributes also to modify the tartarous diseases. The tartar may be
likewise distinguished according as it comes from the blood itself,
or from foreign matters accumulated in the humours. The great number
of calculi which have been found in every part of the body, and the
obstructions, confirm the generality of this morbific cause, to which
are due most of the diseases of the liver. When the tartarous matter
is increased by certain articles of food, renal calculi are engendered,
a calculous paroxysm is induced, and violent pain is occasioned. It
acts as an emetic, and may even give occasion to death, when the saline
spirit becomes corrosive; and when the tartar coagulated by it becomes
too irritating.
Tartar, then, is always an excrementitious substance, which in many
cases results from the too great activity of the digestive forces. It
may make its appearance in all parts of the body, from the irregularity
and the activity, too energetic or too indolent, of the archeus;
and then it occasions particular accidents relative to each of the
functions. Paracelsus enumerates a great number of diseases of the
organs, which may be explained by that one cause; and affirms, that the
profession of medicine would be infinitely more useful, if medical men
would endeavour to discover the tartar before they tried to explain the
affections.
Paracelsus points out, also, the means by which we can distinguish
the presence of tartar in urine. For this it is necessary, not merely
to inspect the urine, but to subject it to a chemical analysis. He
declaims violently against the ordinary ouroscopy. He divides urine
into internal and external; the internal comes from the blood, and the
external announces the nature of the food and drink which has been
employed. To the sediment of urine he gives the new name of _alcola_,
and admits three species of it, namely, _hypostasis_, _divulsio_, and
_sedimen_. The first is connected with the stomach, the second with the
liver, and the third with the kidneys; and tartar predominates in all
the three.
The Cabala constantly directs Paracelsus in his therapeutics and
materia medica. As all terrestrial things have their image in the
region of the stars, and as diseases depend also on the influence of
the stars, we have nothing more to do, in order to obtain a certain
cure for these diseases, than to discover, by means of the Cabala,
the harmony of the constellations. _Gold_ is a specific against all
diseases of the _heart_, because, in the mystic scale, it is in
harmony with that viscus. The _liquor of the moon_ and crystal cure
the diseases of the _brain_. The liquor _alkahest_ and _cheiri_ are
efficacious against those of the _liver_. When we employ vegetable
substances, we must consider their harmony with the constellations,
and their magical harmony with the parts of the body and the diseases,
each star drawing, by a sort of magical virtue, the plant for which it
has an affinity, and imparting to it its activity. So that plants are
a kind of sublunary stars. To discover the virtues of plants, we must
study their anatomy and cheiromancy; for the leaves are their hands,
and the lines observable on them enable us to appreciate the virtues
which they possess. Thus the anatomy of the _chelidonium_ shows us that
it is a remedy for jaundice. These are the celebrated _signatures_ by
means of which we deduce the virtues of vegetables, and the medicines
of analogy which they present in relation to their form. Medicines,
like women, are known by the forms which they affect. He who calls
in question this principle, accuses the Divinity of falsehood, the
infinite wisdom of whom has contrived these external characters to
bring the study of them more upon a level with the weakness of the
human understanding. On the corolla of the euphrasia there is a black
dot; from this we may conclude that it furnishes an excellent remedy
against all diseases of the eye. The lizard has the colour of malignant
ulcers, and of the carbuncle; this points out the efficacy which that
animal possesses as a remedy.
These signatures were exceedingly convenient for the fanatics, since
they saved them the trouble of studying the medical virtues of plants,
but enabled them to decide the subject _à priori_. Paracelsus acted
very considerately, when he ascribed these virtues principally to the
stars, and affirmed that the observation of favourable constellations
is an indispensable condition in the employment of these medicines.
“The remedies are subjected to the will of the stars, and directed by
them; you ought therefore to wait till heaven is favourable, before
ordering a medicine.”
Paracelsus considered all the effects of plants as specifics, and the
use of them as secrets. The same notions explain the eulogy which he
bestowed on the _elixir of long life_, and upon all the means which
he employed to prolong the term of existence. He believed that these
methods, which contained the _materia prima_, served to repair the
constant waste of that matter in the human body. He was acquainted,
he says, with four of these arcana, to which he applied the mystic
terms, _mercury of life_, _philosopher’s stone_, &c. The _polygonum
persicaria_ was an infallible specific against all the effects of
magic. The method of using it is, to apply it to the suffering part,
and then to bury it in the earth. It draws out the malignant spirits
like a magnet, and it is buried to prevent these malignant spirits from
making their escape.
The reformation of Paracelsus had the great advantage of representing
_chemistry_ as an indispensable art in the preparation of medicines.
The disgusting decoctions and useless syrups gave place to _tinctures_,
_essences_, and _extracts_. Paracelsus says, expressly, that the true
use of chemistry is to prepare medicines, and not to make gold. He
takes that opportunity of declaiming against cooks and innkeepers, who
drown medicines in soup, and thus destroy all their properties. He
blames medical men for prescribing simples, or mixtures of simples, and
affirms that the object should always be to extract the quintessence
of each substance; and he describes at length the method of extracting
this quintessence. But he was very little scrupulous about the
substances from which this quintessence was to be extracted. The
heart of a hare, the bones of a hare, the bone of the heart of a stag,
mother-of-pearl, coral, and various other bodies may, he says, be used
indiscriminately to furnish a quintessence capable of curing some of
the most grievous diseases.
Paracelsus combats with peculiar energy the method of cure employed
by the disciples of Galen, directed solely against the predominating
humours, and the elementary qualities. He blames them for attempting
to correct the action of their medicines, by the addition of useless
ingredients. Fire and chemistry, he affirmed, are the sole correctives.
It was Paracelsus that first introduced _tin_ as a remedy for worms,
though his mode of employing it was not good.
I have been thus particular in pointing out the philosophical and
medical opinions of Paracelsus, because they were productive of such
important consequences, by setting medical men free from the slavish
deference which they had been accustomed to pay to the dogmas of Galen
and Avicenna. But it was the high rank to which he raised chemistry,
by making a knowledge of it indispensable to all medical men; and by
insisting that the great importance of chemistry did not consist in the
formation of gold, but in the preparation of medicines, that rendered
the era of Paracelsus so important in the history of chemistry; for
after his time the art of chemistry was cultivated by medical men in
general--it became a necessary part of their education, and began to
be taught in colleges and medical schools. The object of chemistry
came to be, not to discover the philosopher’s stone, but to prepare
medicines; and a great number of new medicines, both from the mineral
and vegetable kingdom--some of more, some of less, consequence, soon
issued from the laboratories of the chemical physicians.
There can be little doubt that many chemical preparations were either
first introduced into medicine by Paracelsus, or at least were first
openly prescribed by him: though from the nature of his writings, and
the secrecy in which he endeavoured to keep his most valuable remedies,
it is not easy to point out what these remedies were. Mercury is said
to have been employed in medicine by Basil Valentine; but it was
Paracelsus who first used it openly as a cure for the venereal disease,
and who drew general attention to it by his encomiums on its medical
virtues, and by the eclat of the cures which he performed by means of
it, after all the Galenical prescriptions of the schools had been tried
in vain.
He ascertained that alum contains, united to an acid, not a metallic
oxide, but an earth. He mentions metallic arsenic; but there is some
reason for believing that this metal was known to Geber and the
Arabian physicians. Zinc is mentioned by him, and likewise bismuth,
as substances not truly metallic, but approaching to metals in their
properties: for malleability and ductility were considered by him as
essential to the metals.[159] I cannot be sure of any other chemical
fact which appears in Paracelsus, and which was not known before his
time. The use of sal ammoniac in subliming several metallic calces,
was familiar to him, but it had long ago been explained by Geber. It
is clear also that Geber was acquainted with aqua regia, and that he
employed it to dissolve gold. Paracelsus’s reputation as a chemist,
therefore, depends not upon any discoveries which he actually made,
but upon the great importance which he attached to the knowledge of
it, and to his making an acquaintance with chemistry an indispensable
requisite of a medical education.
[159] Philosophiæ, tract. iv. De Mineralibus. Opera Paracelsi, ii.
282. “Quando ergo hoc modo metalla fiunt et producuntur, dum scilicet
verus metallicus fluxus et ductilitas aufertur et in septem metalla
distribuitur; residentia quædam manet in Ares, instar fœtûm trium
primorum. Ex hac nescitur zinetum, quod et metallum est et non est.
Sic et bisemutum et huic similia alia partim fluida, partim ductilia
sunt--Zinetum maxima ex parte spuria soboles est ex cupro et bisemutum
de stanno. Ex hisce duobus omnium plurimæ fæces et remanentiæ in Ares
fiunt.”
Paracelsus, as the founder of a new system of medicine, the object
of which was to draw chemistry out of that state of obscurity and
degradation into which it had been plunged, and to give it the charge
of the preparation of medicine, and presiding over the whole healing
art, deserved a particular notice; and I have even endeavoured, at
some length, to lay his system of opinions, absurd as it is, before
the reader. But the same attention is not due to the herd of followers
who adopted his absurdities, and even carried them, if possible,
still further than their master: at the same time there are one or
two particulars connected with the Paracelsian sect which it would be
improper to omit.
The most celebrated of his followers was Leonhard
Thurneysser-zum-Thurn, who was born in 1530, at Basle, where his father
was a goldsmith. His life, like that of his master, was checkered with
very extraordinary vicissitudes. In 1560 he was sent to Scotland to
examine the lead-mines in that country. In 1558 he commenced miner and
sulphur extractor at Tarenz on the Inn, and was so successful, that he
acquired a great reputation. He had turned his attention to medicine
on the Paracelsian plan, and in 1568 made himself distinguished by
several important cures which he performed. In 1570 he published his
Quinta Essentia, with wooden cuts, in Munster; from thence he went to
Frankfort on the Oder, and published his Piso, a work which treats of
_waters_, _rivers_, and _springs_. John George, Elector of Brandenburg,
was at that time in Frankfort, and was informed that the treatise
of Thurneysser pointed out the existence of a great deal of riches
in the March of Brandenburg, till that time unknown. His courtiers,
who were anxious to establish mines in their possessions, united in
recommending the author. He was consulted about a disease under which
the wife of the elector was labouring, and having performed a cure, he
was immediately named physician to this prince.
He turned this situation to the best account. He sold Spanish white,
and other cosmetics, to the ladies of the court; and instead of the
disgusting decoctions of the Galenists, he administered the remedies of
Paracelsus under the pompous titles of _tincture of gold_, _magistery
of the sun_, _potable gold_, &c. By these methods he succeeded in
amassing a prodigious fortune, but was not fortunate enough to be able
to keep it. Gaspard Hoffmann, professor at Frankfort, a well-informed
and enlightened man, published a treatise, the object of which was
to expose the extravagant pretensions and ridiculous ignorance of
Thurneysser. This book drew the attention of the courtiers, and opened
the eyes of the elector. Thurneysser lost much of his reputation; and
the methods by which he attempted to bolster himself up, served only
to sink him still lower in the estimation of men of sense. Among other
things, he gave out that he was the possessor of a devil, which he
carried about with him in a bottle. This pretended devil was nothing
else than a scorpion, preserved in a phial of oil. The trick was
discovered, and the usual consequences followed. He lost a process with
his wife, from whom he was separated; this deprived him of the greatest
part of his fortune. In 1584 he fled to Italy, where he occupied
himself with the transmutation of metals, and he died at Cologne in
1595.
Thurneysser extols Paracelsus as the only true physician that ever
existed. His Quintessence is written in verse. In the first book
_The Secret_ is the speaker. He is represented with a padlock in his
mouth, a key in his hand, and seated on a coffer in a chamber, the
windows of which are shut. This personage teaches that all things
are composed of salt, sulphur, and mercury, or of earth, air, and
water; and consequently that _fire_ is excluded from the number of the
elements. We must search for the secret in the _Bible_, and then in
the _stars_ and the _spirits_. In the second book, _Alchymy_ is the
speaker. She points out the mode of performing the processes; and says
that to endeavour to fix volatile substances, is the same thing as to
endeavour to trace white letters on a wall with a piece of charcoal.
She prohibits all long processes, because God created the world in six
days.
His method of judging of the diseases from the urine of the patient
deserves to be mentioned. He distilled the urine, and fixed to the
receiver a tube furnished with a scale, the degrees of which consisted
of all the parts of the body. The phenomena which he observed during
the distillation of the urine, enabled him to draw inferences
respecting the state of all these different organs.
I pass over Bodenstein, Taxites, and Dorn, who distinguished themselves
as partisans of Paracelsus. Dorn derived the whole of chemistry from
the first chapter of Genesis, the words of which he explained in an
alchymistical sense. These words in particular, “And God made the
firmament, and divided the waters which were under the firmament
from the waters which were above the firmament,” appeared to him to
be an account of the _great work_. Severinus, physician to the King
of Denmark, and canon of Roskild, was also a celebrated partisan of
Paracelsus; but his writings do not show either that knowledge or
stretch of thought which would enable us to account for the reputation
which he acquired and enjoyed.
There were very few partisans of Paracelsus out of Germany. The most
celebrated of his followers among the French, was Joseph du Chesne,
better known by the name of Quercitanus, who was physician to Henry
IV. He was a native of Gascony, and drew many enemies upon himself by
his arrogant and overbearing conduct. He pretended to be acquainted
with the method of making gold. He was a thorough-going Paracelsian.
He affirmed that diseases, like plants, spring from seeds. The word
alchymy, according to him, is composed of the two Greek words ἁλς
(salt) and χημεια, because the _great secret_ is concealed in salt. All
bodies are composed of three principles, as God is of three substances.
These principles are contained in saltpetre, the salts of sulphur solid
and volatile, and the volatile mercurial salt. He who possesses _sal
generalis_ may easily produce philosophical gold, and draw potable
gold from the three kingdoms of nature. To prove the possibility of
this transmutation, he cites an experiment very often repeated after
him, and which some theologians have even employed as analogous to the
resurrection of the dead; namely, the faculty which plants have of
being produced from their ashes. His materia medica is founded on the
_signatures_ of plants, which he carries so far as to assert that male
plants are more suitable to men, and female plants to women. Sulphuric
acid, he says, has a magnetic virtue, in consequence of which it is
capable of curing the epilepsy. He recommends the _magisterium cranii
humani_ as an excellent medicine, and boasts much of the virtues of
antimony.
Du Chesne was opposed by Riolanus, who attacked chemical remedies with
much bitterness. The medical faculty of Paris took up the cause of the
Galenists with much zeal, and prohibited their fellows and licentiates
from using any chemical medicines whatever. He had to sustain a
dispute with Aubert relative to the origin and the transmutation of
metals. Fenot came to the assistance of Aubert, and affirmed that gold
possesses no medical properties whatever, that _crabs’ eyes_ are of
no use when administered in intermittents, and that the laudanum of
Paracelsus (being an opiate) is in reality hurtful instead of being
beneficial.
The decree of the medical faculty of Paris which placed antimony among
the poisons, and which occasioned that of the Parliament of Paris, was
composed by Simon Pietre, the elder, a man of great erudition and the
most unimpeachable probity. Had it been literally obeyed it would have
occasioned very violent proceedings; because chemical remedies, as they
act more promptly and with greater energy, were getting daily into
more general use. In 1603 the celebrated Theodore Turquet de Mayenne
was prosecuted, because, in spite of the prohibition, he had sold
antimonial preparations. The decree of the faculty against him exhibits
a remarkable proof of the bigotry and intolerance of the times.[160]
However Turquet does not seem to have been molested notwithstanding
this decree. He ceased indeed to be professor of chemistry, but
continued to practise medicine as formerly; and two members of the
faculty, Seguin and Akakia, even wrote an apology for him. At last he
went to England, whither he had been invited, to accept an honourable
appointment.
[160] It was as follows: “Collegium medicorum in Academia Parisiensi
legitime congregatum, audita renunciatione sensorum, quibus demandata
erat provincia examinandi apologiam sub nomine Mayerni Turqueti editam,
ipsam unanimi consensu damnat, tanquam famosum libellum, mendacibus
conviciis et impudentibus calumniis refertum, quæ nonnisi ab homine
imperito, impudenti, temulento et furioso profiteri potuerunt. Ipsum
Turquetum indignum judicat, qui usquam medicinam faciat, propter
temeritatem, impudentiam et veræ medicinæ ignorantiam. Omnes vero
medicos, qui ubique gentium et locorum medicinam exercent, hortatur
ut ipsum Turquetum similiaque hominum et opinionum portenta, a se
suisque finibus arceant et in Hippocratis ac Galeni doctrina constantes
permaneant: et prohibuit ne quis ex hoc medicorum Parisiensium ordine
cum Turqueto eique similibus medica consilia ineat. Qui secus fecerit,
scholæ ornamentis et academiæ privilegiis privabitur, et de regentium
numero expungetur.--Datum Lutetiæ in scholis superioribus, die 5
Decembris, anno salutis, 1603.”
The mystical doctrines of Paracelsus are supposed to have given
origin to the sect of Rosecrucians, concerning which so much has been
written and so little certain is known. It is not at all unlikely
that the greatest part, if not the whole that has been stated about
the antiquity, and extent, and importance of this sect, is mere
fiction, and that the origin of the whole was nothing else than a
ludicrous performance of Valentine Andreæ, an ecclesiastic of Calwe,
in the country of Wirtemburg, a man of much learning, genius, and
philanthropy. From his life, written by himself, and preserved in
the library of Wolfenbuttel, we learn that in the year 1603 he drew
up the celebrated Noce Chimique of Christian Rosenkreuz, in order to
counteract the alchymistical and the theosophistical dogmas so common
at that period. He was unable to restrain his risible faculties when
he saw this _ludibrium juvenilis ingenii_ adopted as a true history,
while he meant it merely as a satire. It is believed that the Fama
Fraternitatis is a production of this ecclesiastic, and that he
published it in order to correct the chemists and enthusiasts of the
time. He himself was called Andreæ, Knight of the Rose-cross (_rosæ
crucis_) because he had engraven on his seal a cross with four roses.
It is true that Andreæ instituted, in 1620, a _fraternitas christiana_,
but with quite other views than those which are supposed to have
actuated the Rosecrucians. His object was to correct the religious
opinions of the times, and to separate Christian theology from
scholastic controversies, with which it had been unhappily intermixed.
He himself, in different parts of his writings, distinguishes carefully
between the Rosecrucians and his own society, and amuses himself with
the credulity of the German theosophists, who adopted so readily his
fiction for a series of truths. It would appear, therefore, that this
secret order of Rosecrucians, notwithstanding the brilliant origin
assigned to it, really owes its birth to the pleasantry of a clergyman
of Wirtemburg, who endeavoured by that means to set bounds to the
chimeras of theosophy, but who unfortunately only increased still more
the adherents of this absurd science.
A crowd of enthusiasts found it too advantageous to propagate the
principles of the _rosa crux_ not to endeavour to unite them into
a sect. Valentine Weigel, a fanatical preacher at Tschoppau, near
Chemnitz, left at his death a prodigious number of followers, who
were already Rosecrucians, without bearing the name. Egidius Gutmann,
of Suabia, was equally a Rosecrucian, without bearing the name; he
condemned all pagan medicines, and affirmed that he possessed the
universal remedy which ennobles man, cures all diseases, and gives man
the power of fabricating gold. “To fly in the air, to transmute metals,
and to know all the sciences,” says he, “nothing more is requisite than
faith.”
Oswald Crollius, of Hesse, must also take his station in this
honourable fraternity of enthusiasts. He was physician to the Prince
of Anhalt, and afterwards a counsellor of the Emperor Rodolphus II.
The introduction to his Basilica Chymica, contains a short but exact
epitome of the opinions of Paracelsus. It is not worth while to give
the reader a notion of his own opinions, which are quite as absurd
and unintelligible as those of Paracelsus and his followers. As a
preparer of chemical medicines he deserves more credit; _antimonium
diaphoreticum_ was a favourite preparation of his, and so was sulphate
of potash, which was known at the time by the name of _specificum
purgans Paracelsi_: he knew chloride of silver well, and first gave it
the name of _luna cornea_, or _horn silver_: fulminating gold was known
to him, and called by him _aurum volatile_.
This is the place to mention Andrew Libavius, of Halle, in Saxony,
where he was a physician, and a professor in the gymnasium of
Coburg, who was one of the most successful opponents of the school
of Paracelsus, and whose writings do him much credit. As a chemist,
he deserves perhaps to occupy a higher rank than any of his
contemporaries: he was, it is true, a believer in the possibility of
transmuting metals, and boasted of the wonderful powers of _aurum
potabile_; but he always distinguishes between rational alchymy and
the _mental_ alchymy of Paracelsus. He separated, with great care,
_chemistry_ from the reveries of the theosophists, and stands at
the head of those who opposed most successfully the progress of
superstition and fanaticism, which was making such an overwhelming
progress in his time. His writings are very numerous and various, and
were collected and published at Frankfort, in 1615, in three folio
volumes, under the title of “Opera omnia Medico-chymica.” Libavius
himself died in 1616. It would occupy more space than we have room
for, to attempt an abstract of his very multifarious works. A few
observations will be sufficient: he wrote no fewer than five different
tracts to expose the quackery of George Amwald, who had boasted that
he was in possession of a panacea, by means of which he was enabled
to perform the most wonderful cures, and which he was in the habit of
selling to his patients at an enormous price; Libavius showed that
this boasted panacea was nothing else than _cinnabar_, which neither
possessed the virtues ascribed to it by Amwald, nor deserved to be
purchased at so high a price. He entered also into a controversy
with Crollius, and exposed his fanatical and absurd opinions. He
engaged likewise in a dispute with Henning Scheunemann, a physician in
Bamberg, who was a Rosecrucian, and, like the rest of his brethren,
profoundly ignorant not merely of all science, but even of philology.
The expressions of Scheunemann are so obscure, that we learn more of
his opinions from Libavius than from his own writings. He divides the
internal nature of man into seven different degrees, from the seven
changes it undergoes: these are, combustion, sublimation, dissolution,
putrefaction, distillation, coagulation, and tincture. He gives us
likewise an account of ten modifications which the three elements
undergo; but as they are quite unintelligible, it is not worth while to
state them. Libavius had the patience to analyze and expose all these
gallimatias.
Libavius’s system of chemistry, entitled “Alchymia è dispersis passim
optimorum auctorum, veterum et recentiorum exemplis potissimum, tum
etiam preceptis quibusdam operose collecta, adhibitisque ratione
et experientia quanta potuit esse methodo accurate explicata et in
integrum corpus redacta. Accesserunt tractati nonnulli physici chymici
item methodistici.” Frankfort, 1595, folio, 1597, 4to.--is really an
excellent book, considering the period in which it was written, and
deserves the attention of every person who is interested in the history
of chemistry. I shall notice some of the most remarkable chemical facts
which occur in Libavius, and which I have not observed in any preceding
writer; who the actual discoverer of these facts really was, it is
impossible to say, in consequence of the secrecy which at that time was
affected, and the obscure terms in which chemical facts are in general
stated.
He was aware that the fumes of sulphur have the property of blackening
white lead. He was in the habit of purifying cinnabar by means of
arsenic and oxide of lead. He knew the method of giving glass a red
colour by means of gold or its oxide, and was aware of the method
of making artificial gems, such as ruby, topaz, hyacinth, garnet,
balass, by tinging glass by means of metallic oxides. He points out
fluor spar as an excellent flux for various metals and their oxides.
He knew that when metals were fused along with alkaline bodies, a
certain portion of them was converted into slags, and this portion
he endeavoured to recover by the addition of iron filings. He was
aware of the mode of acidifying sulphur by means of nitric acid. He
knew that camphor is soluble in nitric acid, and forms with it a kind
of oil. Of the perchloride of tin he was undoubtedly the discoverer,
as it has continued ever since his time to pass by his name; namely,
_fuming liquor of Libavius_. He was aware, that alcohol or spirits
could be obtained by distilling the fermented juice of a great variety
of sweet fruits. He procured sulphuric acid by the distillation of alum
and sulphate of iron, as Geber had done long before his time; but he
determined the nature of the acid with more care than had been done,
and showed, that it was the same as that obtained by the combustion of
sulphur along with saltpetre. To him, therefore, in some measure, are
we indebted for the process of preparing sulphuric acid which is at
present practised by manufacturers.
Libavius found a successor in Angelus Sala, of Vicenza, physician to
the Duke of Mecklenburg-Schwerin, worthy of his enlightened views and
indefatigable exertions to oppose the torrent of fanaticism which
threatened to overwhelm all Europe. Sala was still more addicted to
chemical remedies than Libavius himself; but he had abjured a multitude
of prejudices which had distinguished the school of Paracelsus. He
discarded _aurum potabile_, and considered fulminating gold as the
only remedy of that metal that deserved to be prescribed by medical
men. He treated the notion of the existence of a universal remedy with
contempt. He described sulphuret of gold and glass of antimony with a
good deal of precision. He recommended sulphuric acid as an excellent
remedy, and showed that it might be formed indifferently from sulphur,
or by distilling blue vitriol or green vitriol. He affirmed, that the
essential salts obtained from plants had not the same virtues as the
plants from which they are obtained. He showed that sal ammoniac is
a compound of muriatic acid and ammonia. To him, therefore, we are
indebted for the first accurate mention of ammonia. It could not but
have been noticed before by chemists, as it is procured with so much
ease by the distillation of animal substances; but Sala is the first
person who seems to have examined it with attention, and to have
recognised its peculiar properties, and the readiness with which it
saturates the different acids. He showed that iron has the property
of precipitating copper from acid solutions: he pointed out also
various precipitations of metals by other metals. He seems to have
been acquainted with calomel, and to have been aware of at least some
of its medical properties. He says, that fulminating gold loses its
fulminating property when mixed with its own weight of sulphur, and
the sulphur is burnt off it. Many other curious chemical facts occur
in his writings, which it would be too tedious to particularize here.
His works were collected and published in a quarto volume at Frankfort,
in 1647, under the title of “Opera Medico-chymica, quæ extant omnia.”
There was another edition in the same place in 1682, and an edition was
published at Rome in 1650.