Besides this work, there is a number of other books of Basil Valentine's, printed during the first half of the sixteenth century, that are well-known and copies of which may be found in most of the important libraries. The United States Surgeon General's Library at Washington contains several of the works on medical subjects, and the New York Academy of Medicine Library has some valuable editions of his works. Some of his other well-known books, each of which is a good-sized octavo volume, bear the following descriptive titles (I give them in English, though, as they are usually to be found, they are in Latin, sixteenth-century [{73}] translations of the original German): "The World in Miniature: or, The Mystery of the World and of Human Medical Science," published at Marburg, 1609;--"The Chemical Apocalypse: or, The Manifestation of Artificial Chemical Compounds," published at Erfurt in 1624;--"A Chemico-Philosophic Treatise Concerning Things Natural and Preternatural, Especially Relating to the Metals and the Minerals," published at Frankfurt in 1676;--"Haliography: or, The Science of Salts: A Treatise on the Preparation, Use and Chemical Properties of All the Mineral, Animal and Vegetable Salts," published at Bologna in 1644;--"The Twelve Keys of Philosophy," Leipsic, 1630.
The great interest manifested in Basil Valentine's work at the Renaissance period can be best realized from the number of manuscript copies and their wide distribution. His books were not all printed at one place, but, on the contrary, in different portions of Europe. The original edition of "The Triumphal Chariot of Antimony" was published at Leipsic in the early part of the sixteenth century. The first editions of the other books, however, appeared at places so distant from Leipsic as Amsterdam and Bologna, while various cities of Germany, as Erfurt and Frankfurt, claim the original editions of still other works. Many of the manuscript copies still exist in various libraries in Europe; and while there is no doubt that some unimportant additions to the supposed works of Basil Valentine have come [{74}] from the attribution to him of scientific treatises of other German writers, the style and the method of the principal works mentioned are entirely too similar not to have been the fruit of a single mind and that possessed of a distinct investigating genius setting it far above any of its contemporaries in scientific speculation and observation.
The most interesting feature of all of Basil Valentine's writings that are extant is the distinctive tendency to make his observations of special practical utility. His studies in antimony were made mainly with the idea of showing how that substance might be used in medicine. He did not neglect to point out other possible uses, however, and knew the secret of the employment of antimony in order to give sharpness and definition to the impression produced by metal types. It would seem as though he was the first scientist who discussed this subject, and there is even some question whether printers and type founders did not derive their ideas in this matter from Basil Valentine, rather than he from them. Interested as he was in the transmutation of metals, he never failed to try to find and suggest some medicinal use for all of the substances that he investigated. His was no greedy search for gold and no accumulation of investigations with the idea of benefiting only himself. Mankind was always in his mind, and perhaps there is no better demonstration of his fulfilment of the character of the monk than this constant [{75}] solicitude to benefit others by every bit of investigation that he carried out. For him with medieval nobleness of spirit the first part of every work must be the invocation of God, and the last, though no less important than the first, must be the utility and fruit for mankind that can be derived from it.
IV.
LINACRE: SCHOLAR, PHYSICIAN, PRIEST.
Linacre, as Dr. Payne remarks, "was possessed from his youth till his death by the enthusiasm of learning. He was an idealist devoted to objects which the world thought of little use." Painstaking, accurate, critical, hypercritical perhaps, he remains to-day the chief literary representative of British Medicine. Neither in Britain nor in Greater Britain have we maintained the place in the world of letters created for us by Linacre's noble start. Quoted by Osler in AEquanimitas.
THOMAS LINACRE