Experiments of Nicholas of Poland and Montpellier.
Of medieval collections of experiments which are medicinal in character we may further include some which do not fall under the head of pseudo-literature but are ascribed to a writer of the thirteenth or early fourteenth century.[2437] Such are “The Experiments of Brother Nicholas, a physician of Poland, who was at Montpellier thirty (or, twenty) years and who had such efficiency (or, was a man of so great experience) that neither before him is there believed to have been his like, nor is it hoped for the future, as is patent in his marvelous works in divers provinces and regions in easily expediting great and sudden cures.”[2438] Nicholas is here spoken of as “brother” because he was a Dominican friar. In one manuscript this Nicholas of Montpellier is further called “de Bodlys.” Serpents are used a great deal in his experiments. Thus to break the stone in the reins or bladder he recommends that the patient drink a little “snake-dust” (pulverem serpentis)[2439] in wine early in the morning and late at night. Or a pulverized toad or scorpion would be even more efficacious.
His Antipocras.
In one manuscript the Experiments of Nicholas are immediately followed by his Antipocras or Book of Empirical Remedies.[2440] This work, in form a poem with a prose prologue, in content is in part an invective against the physicians of the Hippocratic school, who, whether on rational grounds or from motives of professional jealousy, have questioned the marvelous cures which Nicholas has wrought by unusual pills or drugs, or by external applications in rings and brooches. In part it is a listing of these empirical methods, ligatures and suspensions, employment of occult virtues and amulets, by means of which Nicholas asserts that he has wrought so many marvelous cures, and which he declares are based on repeated experiment and solid experience, whether they seem reasonable a priori or not. He assails the authority of Galen who said, “Physician, how can you cure, if you are ignorant of the cause?” He makes much of the doctrine of occult virtues in many things, and “more in despised than in precious and famous things.” As authorities in his support he cites Tobias, Ptolemy, Hermes and “master Albert.” The magnet, as usual, is brought forward as a proof of the existence of occult virtue.
Other works of Nicholas.
A treatise entitled, Fates of the Stars, is ascribed to a Nicholas of Poland in a manuscript at Munich, but if the date given, 1477 A. D., be that of composing the treatise, the author is evidently too late to be our Nicholas.[2441] Of chemical experiments attributed to some Nicholas we shall speak in the following chapter.
[2386] For instance, the following 14th century MSS at Munich and Paris contain Experimenta ascribed to Rasis along with his Divisiones, Antidotarium, Synonyms, etc. CLM 13045, fol. 143; 13114, fol. 247; BN 6902, 6903, 6904, 6906. It is necessary to examine the MSS to tell what the work or works thus designated may be, which I have been unable to do in the case of the MSS at Munich. It is also impossible to tell what Experimenta of Rasis are meant in numbers 1227 and 1229 (James) of the medieval catalogue of St. Augustine’s, Canterbury. Other extant MSS which cannot be identified from the notices of them in the catalogues are: Wolfenbüttel 479, 15th century, fols. 304-16, Experimenta Rasis, and 3175, 15th century, fols. 181v-6v, Experimenta magis famosa et magis usualia ex libro experimentorum generali Rasis; Vienna 2364, 14th century, fols. 153-73, Rhasis, Experimenta, and 2387, 14th century, fols. 137-9, quaedam experimenta translata a “Guirardo.”
[2387] Gilbertus Anglicus, Compendium medicinae, Lyons, 1510, fol. 328v.
[2388] Berlin 908, fol. 62.
[2389] In the Arabic list of 232 titles ascribed to Rasis published by Ranking (1913), numbers 17 and 18 are works on gout.