Chapter IV (2)

[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.