These reflections were promoted if not induced by his having caught a disorder which as it is not mentionable in polite circles, may be described by intimating that the symptom from which it derives its name is alleviated by what Johnson defines tearing or rubbing with the nails. It was communicated to him by a young lady's glove, into which in a evil minute of sportive gallantry he had insinuated his hand. The physicians treated him, secundum artem, in entire ignorance of the disease; they bled him to cool the liver, and they purged him to carry off the torrid choler and the salt phlegm, they repeated this clearance again and again, till from a hale strong and active man they had reduced him to extreme leanness and debility without in the slightest degree abating the cutaneous disease. He then persuaded himself that the humours which the Galenists were so triumphantly expelling from his poor carcase had not preexisted there in that state but were produced by the action of their drugs. Some one cured him easily by brimstone, and this is said to have made him feelingly perceive the inefficiency of the scholastic practice which he had hitherto pursued.
In this state of mind he made over his inheritance to a widowed sister, who stood in need of it, gave up his profession, and left his own country with an intention of never returning to it. The world was all before him, and he began his travels with as little fore-knowledge whither he was going, and as little fore-thought of what he should do, as Adam himself when the gate of Paradise was closed upon him; but he went with the hope that God would direct his course by His good pleasure to some good end. It so happened that he who had renounced the profession of medicine as founded on delusion and imposture was thrown into the way of practising it, by falling in company with a man who had no learning, but who understood the practical part of chemistry, or pyrotechny, as he calls it. The new world which Columbus discovered did not open a wider or more alluring field to ambition and rapacity than this science presented to Van Helmont's enthusiastic and enquiring mind. “Then” says he, “when by means of fire I beheld the penetrale, the inward or secret part of certain bodies, I comprehended the separations of many, which were not then taught in books, and some of which are still unknown.” He pursued his experiments with increasing ardour, and in the course of two years acquired such reputation by the cures which he performed, that because of his reputation he was sent for by the Elector of Cologne. Then indeed he became more ashamed of his late and learned ignorance, and renouncing all books because they sung only the same cuckoo note, perceived that he profited more by fire, and by conceptions acquired in praying. “And then,” says he, “I clearly knew that I had missed the entrance of true philosophy, on all sides obstacles and obscurities and difficulties appeared, which neither labour, nor time, nor vigils, nor expenditure of money could overcome and disperse, but only the mere goodness of God. Neither women, nor social meetings deprived me then of even a single hour, but continual labour and watching were the thieves of my time; for I willingly cured the poor and those of mean estate, being more moved by human compassion, and a moral love of giving, than by pure universal charity reflected in the Fountain of Life.”
INTERCHAPTER XX.
ST. PANTALEON OF NICOMEDIA IN BITHYNIA—HIS HISTORY, AND SOME FURTHER PARTICULARS NOT TO BE FOUND ELSEWHERE.
Non dicea le cose senza il quia;
Che il dritto distingueva dal mancino,
E dicea pane al pane, e vino al vino.
BERTOLDO.
This Interchapter is dedicated to St. Pantaleon, of Nicomedia in Bithynia, student in medicine and practitioner in miracles, whose martyrdom is commemorated by the Church of Rome, on the 27th of July.
Sancte Pantaleon, ora pro nobis!