It was not however until the end of the thirteenth century, that Chemistry can be said to have added any considerable power to the arm of Physic.
Basil Valentine, a German Benedictine monk, led the way to the internal administration of metallic medicine, by a variety of experiments on the nature of Antimony, and in his “Currus Triumphalis Antimonii,” a work written in high Dutch, he has described a number of the combinations of that metal. If however we may credit a vague tradition, he was extremely unfortunate in his first experiments upon his brother monks, all of whom he injured if not killed; those who have keen ears for etymological sounds will instantly recognise, in this circumstance, the origin of the word Antimony,—ἁντί Μονοχους.
It appears that the ancients were ignorant of the internal use and administration of the metals, with the exception of iron, although they frequently used them in external applications. Hippocrates recommends Lead in several parts of his works, as an epulotic application, and for other external purposes. Litharge of Gold and Cerusse also entered the composition of several powders extolled by that ancient physician as possessing great efficacy in defluxions of the eyes. Oribasius and Ætius added “Lithargyrium” to several plaisters, and the composition of the “Snow-like plaister,” from Minium, was long preserved amongst their most valuable secrets. Whether antimony is the Stimmi or Stibium of the ancients has been a matter of conjecture; for Pliny, in speaking of its preparation observes, “Ante omnia urendi modus necessarius, ne Plumbum fiat.” This plumbum however was evidently the revived metal of Antimony, with which the ancients were unacquainted, and therefore mistook it for Lead; besides, the word Plumbum, like many others which I have before mentioned, was used as a general term; thus, according to Pliny, Tin was called Plumbum album; and Agricola calls Lead Plumbum nigrum.[[103]]
The question however is unimportant, for this Stibium was never used but as an external Astringent, especially for the purpose of contracting the eye-lids, and thereby of making the eyes appear very large, which has been considered from the most remote antiquity, as a feature of great beauty; thus the epithet βοῶπὶς is constantly applied by Homer to Juno. This practice appears also to have been followed by the Jews, for Jezebel is said to have painted her eye-brows to make the eyes appear big;[[104]] the expression also shews that the drug employed was the Stimmi. Εστὶμμὶσατο τους οφθαλμους ἁυτης.
To Basil Valentine we are moreover indebted for the discovery of the Volatile Alkali, and of its preparation from Sal Ammoniac; he also first used mineral acids as solvents, and noticed the production of Ether from Alcohol; he seems also to have understood the virtues of sulphate of iron, for he says, when internally administered, it is tonic and comforting to a weak stomach, and that externally applied, it is astringent and styptic: he moreover recommended a fixed alkali made from vine twigs cut in the beginning of March, for the cure of gout and gravel.
In the year 1493, was born near Zurich in Switzerland, Paracelsus, or as he termed himself, Philippus, Theophrastus, Bombastus, Paracelsus de Hohenheim, a man who was destined to produce a greater revolution in the Materia Medica, and a greater change in medical opinions and practice, than any person who had appeared since the days of Galen. He travelled all over the Continent of Europe to obtain knowledge in Chemistry and Physic, and was a great admirer of Basil Valentine, declaring that Antimony was not to be equalled for medicinal virtue, by any other substance in nature: this opinion however does not deserve our respect, for it was not founded upon observation and experiment, but on a fanciful analogy, derived from a property which this metal possesses of refining gold, as I have before related. He also used Mercury without reserve, and appears to have been the first who ventured to administer it internally,[[105]] for although Avicenna asserts that it was not so poisonous as the ancients had imagined, yet he does not attribute to it any virtues; he merely says, “Argentum quidem vivum, plurimi qui bibunt, non læduntur eo.” Its effects, when applied externally, were well known to Theodoric the friar, afterwards Bishop of Cervia, in the twelfth century, who describes the salivation which mercurial frictions will produce. Paracelsus, moreover, employed Lead internally in fevers,—“Saturnus purgat febres” was one of his most favourite maxims. He also gives us directions for the preparation of Red Precipitate with Mercury and Aqua fortis.
Paracelsus, thus armed with opium, mercury, and antimony, remedies of no trifling importance, travelled in all directions and performed many extraordinary cures, amongst which was that of the famous printer Frobenius of Basil, a circumstance which immediately brought him acquainted with Erasmus,[[106]] and made him known to the magistracy of Basil, who elected him professor of chemistry in the year 1527, which was the first professorship that was established in Europe for the promotion and dissemination of chemical science. But notwithstanding this testimony of his success, if we may credit Libavius, he often, like our modern quacks, left his patients more diseased than he found them; and it is acknowledged by his own disciple Oporinus, that when he was sent for to any town, for the purpose of administering his remedies, he was rarely suffered to protract his visit, on account of the general resentment of the inhabitants.
While seated in his chair, he burnt with great solemnity the writings of Galen and Avicenna, and declared to his audience that if God would not impart the secrets of physic, it was not only allowable but even justifiable to consult the devil. His cotemporary physicians he treated with the most sottish vanity and illiberal insolence; in the preface to his work entitled “Paragranum,” he tells them “that the very down of his bald pate had more knowledge than all their writers, the buckles of his shoes more learning than Galen and Avicenna, and his beard more experience than all their Universities.” With such a temper it could not be supposed that he would long retain his chair, in fact he quitted it in consequence of a quarrel with the magistrates, after which he continued to ramble about the country, generally intoxicated, and seldom changing his clothes, or even going to bed; and although he boasted of possessing a Panacea which was capable of curing all diseases in an instant, and even of prolonging life to an indefinite length, yet this drunkard and prince of empirics died after a few hours illness, in the forty-eighth year of his age, at Salzburg in Bavaria, with a bottle of his immortal Catholicon in his pocket.
In contemplating the career of this extraordinary man, it is difficult to say whether disgust or astonishment is the most predominant feeling; his insolence and unparalleled conceit, his insincerity, and brutal singularities, and his habits of immorality and debauchery, are beyond all censure; whilst the important services he has rendered mankind, by opposing the bigotry of the schools and introducing powerful remedies into practice, cannot be recorded without feelings of gratitude and respect: but in whatever estimation Paracelsus may be held, there can be no doubt but that his fame produced a very considerable influence on the character of the age, by exciting the envy of some, the emulation of others, and the industry of all.[[107]]
About a century after Paracelsus, Van Helmont took the lead in physic; he was a man of most indefatigable industry, and spent fifty years in torturing by every chemical experiment he could devise, the various objects in the animal, vegetable, and mineral kingdoms. He was the first physician who applied alum in uterine hemorrhage, and he acquired a great reputation from the success of the practice.