According to some of his biographers Basil Valentine was born in 1393; others are judiciously vague and variously suggest the twelfth, thirteenth, or fourteenth century. That he was a Benedictine monk, he tells us himself, and several monasteries of the order have been named where he is supposed to have lived and laboured.
Many medical historians have doubted whether such a person as Basil Valentine ever existed. His writings are said to have been circulated in manuscript, but no one has ever pretended to have seen one of those manuscripts, and the earliest known edition of any of Basil Valentine’s works was published about 1601, by Johann Thölde, a chemist, and part owner of salt works at Frankenhausen in Thuringia. It is rather a large claim on our credulity, or incredulity, to assume that Thölde was himself the author of the works attributed to the old monk, and that he devised the entire fiction of the alleged discoveries, chemistry and all. It was not an uncommon thing among the alchemists and other writers of the middle ages to represent their books as the works of someone of acknowledged fame, just as the more ancient theologians were wont to credit one of the apostles or venerated fathers with their inventions. But it was not common for a discoverer to hide himself behind a fictitious sage whose existence he had himself invented. This theory is, however, held by some chemical critics.
It is certain that the real Basil Valentine could not have been so ancient as he was generally believed to be. Syphilis is referred to in the “Triumphal Chariot” as the new malady of soldiers (Neue Krankheit der Kriegsleute), as morbus Gallicus, and lues Gallica. It was not known by these names until the invasion of Naples by the French in 1495. Another allusion in the same treatise is to the use of antimony in the manufacture of type metal, which was certainly not adopted at any time at which Basil Valentine could have lived. Another reason for questioning his actual existence is that the most diligent search has failed to discover his name either on the provincial list or on the general roll of the Benedictine monks preserved in the archives of the order at Rome. Boerhaave asserted that the Benedictines had no monastery at Erfurt, which was generally assigned as the home of Valentine.
A curious item of evidence bearing on the allegation that Thölde was the fabricator of Basil Valentine’s works, or at least of part of them, has been indicated by Dr. Ferguson, of Glasgow, in his notes on Dr. Young’s collection of alchemical works. Thölde, it appears, had written a book in his own name entitled “Haliographia.” This is divided into four sections, namely: 1. Various kinds of Salts. 2. Extraction of Salts. 3. Salt Springs. 4. Salts obtained from metals, minerals, animals, and vegetables. This Part 4 of the work was subsequently published by Thölde among Basil Valentine’s writings. One of two things therefore is obvious. Either Thölde adopted a work by Valentine and issued it as his own, or one at least of the pieces alleged to have been by Valentine was really by Thölde.
Basil Valentine, meaning the valiant king, has assuredly an alchemical ring about it. It is exactly such a name as might be invented by one of the scientific fictionists of the middle ages. It is impossible, too, to read the “Triumphal Chariot,” at least when suspicion has been awakened, without feeling that the character of the pious monk is a little overdone. A really devout monk would hardly be proclaiming his piety on every page with so much vehemence. Then there is the legend which accounts for the long lost manuscripts. It is explained that they were revealed to someone, unnamed, when a pillar in a church at Erfurt was struck and split open by lightning, the manuscripts having been buried in that pillar. When this happened is not recorded.
In Kopp’s “Beitrage zur Geschichte der Chemie” the learned author argued that Thölde could only be regarded as an editor of Basil Valentine’s works, because when they were published they gave so many new chemical facts and observations that it was impossible to think that Thölde would have denied himself the credit of the discoveries if they had been his in fact. That book was published in 1875. In “Die Alchemie,” which Kopp published in 1886, he refers to Basil Valentine, and says that there is reason to think that the works attributed to him were an intentional literary deception perpetrated by Thölde.
Paracelsus: His Career.
No one man in history exercised such a revolutionary influence on medicine and pharmacy as the erratic genius Philipus Aureolus Theophrastus Bombast von Hohenheim. The name Paracelsus is believed to have been coined by himself, probably with the intention of somewhat Latinising his patronymic, von Hohenheim, and also perhaps as claiming to rank with the famous Roman physician and medical writer, Celsus. The family of Bombast was an old and honourable one from Württemberg, but the father of the founder of the iatro-chemists was a physician who had settled at Maria-Einsiedeln, a small town in Switzerland, not far from Zurich. He (the father) died at Villach, in Carinthia, in 1534, aged 71.
Theophrastus was an only child. He was born in 1490 or 1491, and owed to his father the first inclination of his mind towards medicine and alchemy. Later he was taught classics at a convent school, and at 16 went to the University of Basel. Apparently he did not stay there long. Classical studies, and the reverence of authorities, which the Universities taught, never attracted him. He is found next at Wurzburg, in the laboratory of Trithemius, an abbot of that city, and a famous adept in alchemy, astrology, and magic generally. He must have acquired much chemical skill in that laboratory, and, doubtless, many of his mystic views began to shape themselves under the instruction of the learned abbot. But Paracelsus was not content with the artificial ideas of the alchemists. By some means he became acquainted with the wealthy Sigismund Fugger, a mine owner in the Tyrol, and either as assistant or friend he joined him. The Fuggers were the Rothschilds of Germany at that time, and one of them entertained Charles V at Augsburg, when the famous diet at which the Emperor was to crush the Reformation was held in that city. On that occasion the wealthy merchant made a cinnamon fire for the Emperor, and lighted it with a bond representing a large sum which Charles owed him.