For gold in physick is a cordiall,
Therefore he loved gold in special.
Chaucer’s _Doctour of Phisike_.
The employment of gold as a remedy is but rarely mentioned in ancient
medical literature. Gold leaf was probably used by the Egyptians to
cover abrasions of the skin. Pieces of it have been found on mummies
apparently so applied. Some of the Arab alchemists, Geber among them,
are believed to have made some kind of elixir of life from gold, but
their writings are too enigmatical to be trusted. Avicenna mentions
gold among blood purifiers, and the gilding of pills originated with
the Eastern pharmacists. Probably it was believed that the gold added
to the efficacy of the pills. It was not, however, until the period of
chemical medicine in Europe that gold attained its special fame.
Arnold of Villa Nova, and Raymond Lully were among the advocates of
the medicinal virtues of gold; but in the century before Paracelsus
appeared, Brassavolus, Fallopius, and other writers questioned its
virtues. With Paracelsus, Quercetanus, Libavius, Crollius, and others
of that age, however, gold entered fully into its kingdom. They could
hardly exalt it too highly. But it is difficult to ascertain from the
writings of this period what the chemical physicians understood by gold.
Paracelsus says it needs much preparation before it can be
administered. To make their aurum potabile some of the alchemists
professed to separate the salt from the fixed sulphur, which they held
was the real principle of gold, its seed, as some of them called it,
and to obtain this in such a form that it could be taken in any liquor.
The seed of gold was with many of them the universal medicine which
would cure all diseases, and prolong life indefinitely. It was the
sulphur of the sun with which that body revivifies nature.
Paracelsus prescribed gold for purifying blood, and intimates that
it is useful as an antidote in cases of poisoning, and will prevent
miscarriages in women. He considered it not so cordial as emeralds, but
more so than silver. He also states that if put into the mouth of a
newly-born babe it will prevent the devil from acquiring power over the
child.
The Archidoxa Medicinæ of Paracelsus, his famous Elixir of Long
Life, is believed to have been a compound of gold and corrosive
sublimate. He recommended gold especially in diseases connected with
the heart, the organ which the sun was supposed to rule. Among the
earlier Paracelsians Angelo Sala wrote a treatise on gold, entitled
“Chrysologia, seu Examen Auri Chymicum,” Hamburg, 1622. Sachsens
prepared a Tinctura Solis secundem secretiorem Paracelsi Mentem
preparata. But Thurneyssen, who carried on his quackeries on the
largest scale, did the most to push the gold business. His Magistery
of the Sun attained to great popularity in Germany, and these and
his other preparations, together with the astrological almanacks
and talismans which he sold, enabled him to live in great splendour
at Frankfort, where he is said to have employed 200 persons in his
laboratory. His fame departed, however, and he died in poverty at
Cologne, in 1595.