nitric acid, and the two Hollanduses kept up the tradition of original
investigation in chemistry. Altogether there are some dozen treatises
from these three men on chemical subjects. The Hollanduses
particularly did their work in a spirit of thoroughly frank, original
investigation. They were more interested in minerals than in any other
class of substances, but did not waste much time on the question of
transmutation of metals. Professor Thompson, the professor of
chemistry at Edinburgh, said in his history of chemistry many years
ago that the Hollanduses have very clear descriptions of their
processes of treating minerals in investigating their composition,
which serve to show that their knowledge was by no means entirely
theoretical or acquired only from books or by argumentation.
Before the end of this fourteenth century, according to the best
authorities on this subject, Basil Valentine, the more particular
subject of our essay, was born.
Valentine's career is a typical example of the personally obscure but
intellectually brilliant lives {56} which these old monks lived. It
seems probable, according to the best authorities, as we have said,
that his work began shortly before the middle of the fifteenth
century, although most of what was important in it was accomplished
during the second half. It would not be so surprising, as most people
who have been brought up to consider the period just before the
Reformation in Germany as wanting in progressive scholars might
imagine, for a supremely great original investigator to have existed
in North Germany about this time. After all, before the end of the
century, Copernicus, the Pole, working in northern Germany, had
announced his theory that the earth was not the center of the
universe, and had set forth all that this announcement meant. To a
bishop-friend who said to him, "But this means that you are giving us
a new universe," he replied that the universe was already there, but
his theory would lead men to recognize its existence. In southern
Germany, Thomas a Kempis, who died in 1471, had traced for man the
outlines of another universe, that of his own soul, from its
mystically practical side. These great Germans were only the worthy
contemporaries of many other German scholars scarcely less
distinguished than these supreme geniuses. The second half of the
fifteenth century, the beginning of the Renaissance in Germany as well
as Italy, is that wonderful time in history when somehow men's eyes
were opened to see farther and their minds broadened to gather in more
of the truth of {57} man's relation to the universe, than had ever
before been the case in all the centuries of human existence, or than
has ever been possible even in these more modern centuries, though
supposedly we are the heirs of all the ages in the foremost files of
time.
Coming as he did before printing, when the spirit of tradition was
even more rife and dominating than it has been since, it is almost
needless to say that there are many curious legends associated with
the name of Basil Valentine. Two centuries before his time, Roger
Bacon, doing his work in England, had succeeded in attracting so much
attention even from the common people, because of his wonderful
scientific discoveries, that his name became a by-word and many
strange magical feats were attributed to him. Friar Bacon was the
great wizard even in the plays of the Elizabethan period. A number of
the same sort of myths attached themselves to the Benedictine monk of
the fifteenth century. He was proclaimed in popular story to have been
a wonderful magician. Even his manuscript, it was said, had not been
published directly, but had been hidden in a pillar in the church
attached to the monastery and had been discovered there after the
splitting open of the pillar by a bolt of lightning from heaven. It is
the extension of this tradition that has sometimes led to the
assumption that Valentine lived in an earlier century, some even going
so far as to say that he, too, like Roger Bacon, was a product of the
{58} thirteenth century. It seems reasonably possible, however, to
separate the traditional from what is actual in his existence, and
thus to obtain some idea at least of his work, if not of the details
of his life. The internal evidence from his works enable the historian
of science to place him within a half century of the discovery of
America.
One of the stories told with regard to Basil Valentine, because it has
become a commonplace in philology, has made him more generally known
than any of his actual discoveries. In one of the most popular of the
old-fashioned text-books of chemistry in use a quarter of a century
ago, in the chapter on Antimony, there was a story that I suppose
students never forgot. It was said that Basil Valentine, a monk of the
Middle Ages, was the discoverer of this substance. After having
experimented with it in a number of ways, he threw some of it out of
his laboratory one day, where the swine of the monastery, finding it,
proceeded to gobble it up together with some other refuse. He watched
the effect upon the swine very carefully, and found that, after a
preliminary period of digestive disturbance, these swine developed an
enormous appetite and became fatter than any of the others. This
seemed a rather desirable result, and Basil Valentine, ever on the
search for the practical, thought that he might use the remedy to good
purpose even on the members of the community.
Now, some of the monks in the monastery were of rather frail health
and delicate constitution, {59} and he thought that the putting on of
a little fat in their case might be a good thing. Accordingly he
administered, surreptitiously, some of the salts of antimony, with
which he was experimenting, in the food served to these monks. The
result, however, was not so favorable as in the case of the hogs.
Indeed, according to one, though less authentic, version of the story,
some of the poor monks, the unconscious subjects of the experiment,
even perished as the result of the ingestion of the antimonial
compounds. According to the better version they suffered only the
usual unpleasant consequences of taking antimony, which are, however,
quite enough for a fitting climax to the story. Basil Valentine called
the new substance which he had discovered antimony, that is, opposed
to monks. It might be good for hogs, but it was a form of monks' bane,
as it were. [Footnote 6]
[Footnote 6: It is curious to trace how old are the traditions on
which some of these old stories that must now be rejected, are
founded. I have come upon the story with regard to Basil Valentine
and the antimony and the monks in an old French medical encyclopedia
of biography, published in the seventeenth century, and at that time
there was no doubt at all expressed as to its truth. How much older
than this it may be I do not know, though it is probable that it
comes from the sixteenth century, when the _kakoethes scribendi_
attacked many people because of the facility of printing, and when
most of the good stories that have so worried the modern dry-as-dust
historian in his researches for their correction became a part of
the body of supposed historical tradition.]
{60}
Unfortunately for most of the good stories of history, modern
criticism has nearly always failed to find any authentic basis for
them, and they have had to go the way of the legends of Washington's
hatchet and Tell's apple. We are sorry to say that that seems to be
true also of this particular story. Antimony, the word, is very
probably derived from certain dialectic forms of the Greek word for
the metal, and the name is no more derived from _anti_ and _monachus_
than it is from _anti_ and _monos_ (opposed to single existence),
another fictitious derivation that has been suggested, and one whose
etymological value is supposed to consist in the fact that antimony is
practically never found alone in nature.
Notwithstanding the apparent cloud of unfounded traditions that are
associated with his name, there can be no doubt at all of the fact
that Valentinus--to give him the Latin name by which he is commonly
designated in foreign literatures--was one of the great geniuses who,
working in obscurity, make precious steps into the unknown that enable
humanity after them to see things more clearly than ever before. There
are definite historical grounds for placing Basil Valentine as the
first of the series of careful observers who differentiated chemistry
from the old alchemy and applied its precious treasures of information
to the uses of medicine. It was because of the study of Basil
Valentine's work that Paracelsus broke away from the Galenic
traditions, so supreme in medicine up to his time, {61} and began our
modern pharmaceutics. Following on the heels of Paracelsus came Van
Helmont, the father of modern medical chemistry, and these three did
more than any others to enlarge the scope of medication and to make
observation rather than authority the most important criterion of
truth in medicine. Indeed, the work of these three men dominated
medicine, or at least the department of pharmaceutics, down almost to
our own day, and their influence is still felt in drug-giving.
While we do not know the absolute date of either the birth or the
death of Basil Valentine and are not sure even of the exact period in
which he lived and did his work, we are sure that a great original
observer about the time of the invention of printing studied mercury
and sulphur and various salts, and above all, introduced antimony to
the notice of the scientific world, and especially to the favor of
practitioners of medicine. His book, "The Triumphal Chariot of
Antimony," is full of conclusions not quite justified by his premises
nor by his observations. There is no doubt, however, that the
observational methods which he employed did give an immense amount of
knowledge and formed the basis of the method of investigation by which
the chemical side of medicine was to develop during the next two or
three centuries. Great harm was done by the abuse of antimony, but
then great harm is done by the abuse of anything, no matter how good
it may be. For a {62} time it came to be the most important drug in
medicine and was only replaced by venesection.
The fact of the matter is that doctors were looking for effects from
their drugs, and antimony is, above all things, effective. Patients,
too, wished to see the effect of the medicines they took. They do so
even yet, and when antimony was administered there was no doubt about
its working.
Some five years ago, when Sir Michael Foster, M.D., professor of
physiology in the University of Cambridge, England, was invited to
deliver the Lane lectures at the Cooper Medical College, in San
Francisco, he took for his subject "The History of Physiology." In the
course of his lecture on "The Rise of Chemical Physiology" he began
with the name of Basil Valentine, who first attracted men's attention
to the many chemical substances around them that might be used in the
treatment of disease, and said of him:--
He was one of the alchemists, but in addition to his inquiries into
the properties of metals and his search for the philosopher's stone,
he busied himself with the nature of drugs, vegetable and mineral,
and with their action as remedies for disease. He was no anatomist,
no physiologist, but rather what nowadays we should call a
pharmacologist. He did not care for the problem of the body, all he
sought to understand was how the constituents of the soil and of
plants might be treated so as to be available for healing the sick
and how they produced their effects. We apparently owe to him the
introduction of many chemical substances, for instance, of {63}
hydrochloric acid, which he prepared from oil of vitriol and salt,
and of many vegetable drugs. And he was apparently the author of
certain conceptions which, as we shall see, played an important part
in the development of chemistry and of physiology. To him, it seems,
we owe the idea of the three "elements," as they were and have been
called, replacing the old idea of the ancients of the four
elements--earth, air, fire, and water. It must be remembered,
however, that both in the ancient and in the new idea the word
"element" was not intended to mean that which it means to us now, a
fundamental unit of matter, but a general quality or property of
matter. The three elements of Valentine were (1) sulphur, or that
which is combustible, which is changed or destroyed, or which at all
events disappears during burning or combustion; (2) mercury, that
which temporarily disappears during burning or combustion, which is
dissociated in the burning from the body burnt, but which may be
recovered, that is to say, that which is volatile, and (3) salt,
that which is fixed, the residue or ash which remains after burning.
The most interesting of Basil Valentine's books, and the one which has
had the most enduring influence, is undoubtedly "The Triumphal Chariot
of Antimony." It has been translated and has had a wide vogue in every
language of modern Europe. Its recommendation of antimony had such an
effect upon medical practice that it continued to be the most
important drug in the pharmacopoeia down almost to the middle of the
nineteenth century. If any proof were needed that Basil Valentine or
that the author of the books that go under that name was a monk, it
would be found in the {64} introduction to this volume, which not only
states that fact very clearly, but also in doing so makes use of
language that shows the writer to have been deeply imbued with the old
monastic spirit. I quote the first paragraph of this introduction in
order to make clear what I mean. The quotation is taken from the
English translation of the work as published in London in 1678.
Curiously enough, seeing the obscurity surrounding Valentine himself,
we do not know for sure who made the translation. The translator
apologizes somewhat for the deeply religious spirit of the book, but
considers that he was not justified in eliminating any of this. Of
course, the translation is left in the quaint old-fashioned form so
eminently suited to the thoughts of the old master, and the spelling
and use of capitals is not changed:
Basil Valentine--His Triumphant Chariot of Antimony Since I, Basil
Valentine, by Religious Vows am bound to live according to the Order
of St. Benedict, and that requires another manner of spirit of
Holiness than the common state of Mortals exercised in the profane
business of this World; I thought it my duty before all things, in
the beginning of this little book, to declare what is necessary to
be known by the pious Spagyrist [old-time name for medical chemist],
inflamed with an ardent desire of this Art, as what he ought to do,
and whereunto to direct his aim, that he may lay such foundations of
the whole matter as may be stable; lest his Building, shaken with
the Winds, happen to fall, and the whole Edifice to be involved in
shameful Ruine, {65} which otherwise, being founded on more firm and
solid principles, might have continued for a long series of time
Which Admonition I judged was, is and always will be a necessary
part of my Religious Office; especially since we must all die, and
no one of us which are now, whether high or low, shall long be seen
among the number of men For it concerns me to recommend these
Meditations of Mortality to Posterity, leaving them behind me, not
only that honor may be given to the Divine Majesty, but also that
Men may obey him sincerely in all things.
In this my Meditation I found that there were five principal heads,
chiefly to be considered by the wise and prudent spectators of our
Wisdom and Art. The first of which is, Invocation of God. The
second, Contemplation of Nature The third, True Preparation. The
fourth, the Way of Using. The fifth, Utility and Fruit. For he who
regards not these, shall never obtain place among true Chymists, or
fill up the number of perfect Spagyrists. Therefore, touching these
five heads, we shall here following treat and so far declare them,
as that the general Work may be brought to light and perfected by an
intent and studious Operator.
This book, though the title might seem to indicate it, is not devoted
entirely to the study of antimony, but contains many important
additions to the chemistry of the time. For instance, Basil Valentine
explains in this work how what he calls the spirit of salt might be
obtained. He succeeded in manufacturing this material by treating
common salt with oil of vitriol and heat. From the description of the
uses to which he put the end product of his chemical manipulation, it
is evident that under the name of spirit of salt {66} he is describing
what we now know as hydrochloric acid. This is the first definite
mention of it in the history of science, and the method suggested for
its preparation is not very different from that employed even at the
present time. He also suggests in this volume how alcohol may be
obtained in high strengths. He distilled the spirit obtained from wine
over carbonate of potassium, and thus succeeded in depriving it of a
great proportion of its water.
We have said that he was deeply interested in the philosopher's stone.
Naturally this turned his attention to the study of metals, and so it
is not surprising to find that he succeeded in formulating a method by
which metallic copper could be obtained. The substance used for the
purpose was copper pyrites, which was changed to an impure sulphate of
copper by the action of oil of vitriol and moist air. The sulphate of
copper occurred in solution, and the copper could be precipitated from
it by plunging an iron bar into it. Basil Valentine recognized the
presence of this peculiar yellow metal and studied some of its
qualities. He does not seem to have been quite sure, however, whether
the phenomenon that he witnessed was not really a transmutation of the
iron into copper, as a consequence of the other chemicals present.
There are some observations on chemical physiology, and especially
with regard to respiration, in the book on antimony which show their
author to have anticipated the true explanation of the {67} theory of
respiration. He states that animals breathe, because the air is needed
to support their life, and that all the animals exhibit the phenomenon
of respiration. He even insists that the fishes, though living in
water, breathe air, and he adduces in support of this idea the fact
that whenever a river is entirely frozen the fishes die. The reason
for this being, according to this old-time physiologist, not that the
fishes are frozen to death, but that they are not able to obtain air
in the ice as they did in the water, and consequently perish.
There are many testimonies to the practical character of all his
knowledge and his desire to apply it for the benefit of humanity. The
old monk could not repress the expression of his impatience with
physicians who gave to patients for diseases of which they knew
little, remedies of which they knew less. For him it was an
unpardonable sin for a physician not to have faithfully studied the
various mixtures that he prescribed for his patients, and not to know
not only their appearance and taste and effect, but also the limits of
their application. Considering that at the present time it is a
frequent source of complaint that physicians often prescribe remedies
with whose physical appearances they are not familiar, this complaint
of the old-time chemist alchemist will be all the more interesting for
the modern physician. It is evident that when Basil Valentine allows
his ire to get the better of him it is because of his indignation over
the {68} quacks who were abusing medicine and patients in his time, as
they have ever since. There is a curious bit of aspersion on mere
book-learning in the passage that has a distinctly modern ring, and
one feels the truth of Russell Lowell's expression that to read a
great genius, no matter how antique, is like reading a commentary in
the morning paper, so up-to-date does genius ever remain:--
And whensoever I shall have occasion to contend in the School with
such a Doctor, who knows not how himself to prepare his own
medicines, but commits that business to another, I am sure I shall
obtain the Palm from him; for indeed that good man knows not what
medicines he prescribes to the sick; whether the color of them be
white, black, grey, or blew, he cannot tell; nor doth this wretched
man know whether the medicine he gives be dry or hot, cold or humid;
but he only knows that he found it so written in his Books, and
thence pretends knowledge (or as it were, Possession) by
Prescription of a very long time; yet he desires to further
Information Here again let it be lawful to exclaim, Good God, to
what a state is the matter brought! what goodness of minde is in
these men! what care do they take of the sick! Wo, wo to them! in
the day of Judgment they will find the fruit of their ignorance and
rashness, then they will see Him whom they pierced, when they
neglected their Neighbor, sought after money and nothing else;
whereas were they cordial in their profession, they would spend
Nights and Days in Labour that they might become more learned in
their Art, whence more certain health would accrew to the sick with
their Estimation and greater glory to themselves. But since Labour
is tedious to them, they commit the {69} matter to chance, and being
secure of their Honour, and content with their Fame, they (like
Brawlers) defend themselves with a certain garrulity, without any
respect had to Confidence or Truth.
Perhaps one of the reasons why Valentine's book has been of such
enduring interest is that it is written in an eminently human vein and
out of a lively imagination. It is full of figures relating to many
other things besides chemistry, which serve to show how deeply this
investigating observer was attentive to all the problems of life
around him. For instance, when he wants to describe the affinity that
exists between many substances in chemistry, and which makes it
impossible for them not to be attracted to one another, he takes a
figure from the attractions that he sees exist among men and women.
There are some paragraphs with regard to the influence of the passion
of love that one might think rather a quotation from an old-time
sermon than from a great ground-breaking book in the science of
chemistry.
Love leaves nothing entire or sound in man; it impedes his sleep; he
cannot rest either day or night; it takes off his appetite that he
hath no disposition either to meat or drink by reason of the
continual torments of his heart and mind. It deprives him of all
Providence, hence he neglects his affairs, vocation and business. He
minds neither study, labor nor prayer; casts away all thoughts of
anything but the body beloved; this is his study, this his most vain
occupation. If to lovers the success be not answerable to their
wish, or so soon {70} and prosperously as they desire, how many
melancholies henceforth arise, with griefs and sadnesses, with which
they pine away and wax so lean as they have scarcely any flesh
cleaving to the bones Yea, at last they lose the life itself, as may
be proved by many examples! for such men, (which is an horrible
thing to think of) slight and neglect all perils and detriments,
both of the body and life, and of the soul and eternal salvation
It is evident that human nature is not different in our sophisticated
twentieth century from that which this observant old monk saw around
him in the fifteenth. He continues:--
How many testimonies of this violence which is in love, are daily
found? for it not only inflames the younger sort, but it so far
exaggerates some persons far gone in years as through the burning
heat thereof, they are almost mad Natural diseases are for the most
part governed by the complexion of man and therefore invade some
more fiercely, others more gently; but Love, without distinction of
poor or rich, young or old, seizeth all, and having seized so blinds
them as forgetting all rules of reason, they neither see nor hear
any snare.