The chemical writings of Avicenna are of little value, and apply chemistry rather to the supposed medical qualities of the different substances treated of, than to the advancement of the science. All the chemical knowledge which he possesses is obviously drawn from Geber. Geber, then, may be looked upon as the only chemist among the Arabians to whom we are indebted for any real improvements and new facts. It is true that the Arabian physicians improved considerably the materia medica of the Greeks, and introduced many valuable medicines into common use which were unknown before their time. It is enough to mention corrosive sublimate, manna, opium, asafœtida. It would be difficult to make out many of the vegetable substances used by the Arabian chemists; because the plants which they designated by particular names, can very seldom be identified. Botany at that time had made so little progress, that no method was known of describing plants so as to enable other persons to determine what they were.
CHAPTER IV
OF THE PROGRESS OF CHEMISTRY UNDER PARACELSUS AND HIS DISCIPLES.
Hitherto we have witnessed only the first rude beginnings, or, as it were, the early dawn of the chemical day. It is from the time of Paracelsus that the true commencement of chemical investigations is to be dated. Not that Paracelsus or his followers understood the nature of the science, or undertook any regular or successful investigation. But Paracelsus shook the medical throne of Galen and Avicenna to its very foundation; he roused the latent energies of the human mind, which had for so long a period lain torpid; he freed medical men from those trammels, and put an end to that despotism which had existed for five centuries. He pointed out the importance of chemical medicines, and of chemical investigations, to the physician. This led many laborious men to turn their attention to the subject. Those metals which were considered as likely to afford useful medicines, mercury for example, and antimony, were exposed to the action of an infinite number of reagents, and a prodigious collection of new products obtained and introduced into medicine. Some of these were better, and some worse, than the preparations formerly employed; but all of them led to an increase of the stock of chemical knowledge, which now began to accumulate with considerable rapidity. It will be proper, therefore, to give a somewhat particular account of the life and opinions of Paracelsus, so far as they can be made out from his writings, because, though he was not himself a scientific chemist, he may be truly considered as the man through whose means the stock of chemical knowledge was accumulated, which was afterwards, by the ingenuity of Beccher, and Stahl, moulded into a scientific form.
Philippus Aureolus Theophrastus Paracelsus Bombast ab Hohenheim (as he denominates himself) was born at Einsideln, two German miles from Zurich. His father was called William Bombast von Hohenheim. He was a very near relation of George Bombast von Hohenheim, who became afterwards grand master of the order of Johannites. William Bombast von Hohenheim practised medicine at Einsideln.[143] After receiving the first rudiments of his education in his native city, he became a wandering scholastic, as was then the custom with poor scholars. He wandered from province to province, predicting the future by the position of the stars, and the lines on the hand, and exhibiting all the chemical processes which he had learned from founders and alchymists. For his initiation in alchymy, astrology, and medicine, he was indebted to his father, who was much devoted to these three sciences. Paracelsus mentions also the names of several ecclesiastics from whom he received chemical information; among others, Tritheimius, abbot of Spanheim; Bishop Scheit, of Stettbach; Bishop Erhart, of Laventall; Bishop Nicolas, of Hippon; and Bishop Matthew Schacht. He seems also to have served some years as an army surgeon, for he mentions many cures which he performed in the Low Countries, in the States of the Church, in the kingdom of Naples, and during the wars against the Venetians, the Danes, and the Dutch.
There is some uncertainty whether he received a regular college education, as was then the practice with all medical men. He acknowledges himself that his medical antagonists reproached him with never having frequented their schools; and he is perpetually affirming, that a physician should receive all his knowledge from God, and not from man. But if we can trust his own assertions, there can be no doubt that he took a regular medical degree, which implies a regular college education. He tells us, in his preface to his Chirurgia Magna, that he visited the universities of Germany, France, and Italy. He assures his readers, that he was the ornament of the schools where he studied. He even speaks of the oath which he was obliged to take when he received his medical degree; but where he studied, or where and when he received his medical degree, are questions which neither Paracelsus nor his disciples, nor his biographers, have enabled us to solve. If he ever attended a university, he must have neglected his studies, otherwise he could not have been ignorant, as he confessedly was, of the very first elements of the most common kinds of knowledge. But if he neglected the universities, he laboured long and assiduously with the rich Sigismond Fuggerus, of Schwartz, in order to learn the true secret of forming the philosopher’s stone.
He gives us some details of the numerous journeys that he made, as was customary with the alchymists of the time, into the mountains of Bohemia, the East, and Sweden, to inspect the mines, to get himself initiated into the mysteries of the eastern adepts, to inspect the wonders of nature, and to view the celebrated diamond mountain, the position of which, however, he unfortunately forgets to specify.
In the preface to his Chirurgia Magna, he informs us that he traversed Spain, Portugal, England, Prussia, Poland, and Transylvania; where he not only profited by the information of the medical men with whom he became acquainted, but that he drew much precious information from old women, gipsies, conjurors, and chemists.[144] He spent several years in Hungary; and informs us that at Weissenburg, in Croatia, and in Stockholm, he was taught by several old women to prepare drinks capable of curing ulcers. He is said also to have made a voyage into Egypt, and even into Tartary; and he accompanied the son of the Kan of the Tartars to Constantinople, in order to learn the secret of the philosopher’s stone from Trismogin, who inhabited that capital. This prodigious activity, this constant motion from place to place, left him but little leisure for reading: accordingly he informs us himself, that during the space of ten years he never opened a book, and that his whole library consisted only of six sheets. The inventory of his books, drawn up after his death, confirms this recital; for they consisted only of the Bible, the Concordance to the Bible, the New Testament, and the Commentaries of St. Jerome on the Evangelists.
We know not at what period he returned back to Germany; but at the age of thirty-three the great number of fortunate cures which he had performed rendered him an object of admiration to the people, and of jealousy to the rival physicians of the time. He assures us that he cured eighteen princes whose diseases had been aggravated by the practitioners devoted to the system of Galen. Among others he cured Philip, Margrave of Baden, of a dysentery, who promised him a great reward, but did not keep his promise, and even treated him in a way unworthy of that prince. This cure, however, and others of a similar nature, added greatly to his celebrity; and in order to raise his reputation to the highest possible pitch, he announced publicly that he was able to cure all the diseases hitherto reckoned incurable; and that he had discovered an elixir, by means of which the life of man might be prolonged at pleasure to any extent whatever. He began the practice, which has since been so successfully followed in this country, of dispensing medicines gratuitously to the poor, in order to induce the rich to apply to him for assistance when they were overtaken with diseases.
In the year 1526 Paracelsus was appointed professor of physic and surgery in the University of Basil. This appointment was given him, it is said, by the recommendation of Œcolampadius. He introduced the custom of lecturing in the common language of the country, as is at present the universal practice: but during the time of Paracelsus, and long after indeed, all lectures were delivered in Latin. The new method which he followed in explaining the theory and practice of the art; the numerous fortunate cures which he stated in confirmation of his method of treatment; the emphasis with which he spoke of his secrets for prolonging life, and for curing every kind of disease without distinction, but still more his lecturing in a language which was understood by the whole population, drew to Bâle an immense crowd of idle, enthusiastic, and credulous hearers.