“Know,” says he, “that my cap has more learning than all your professors, and my beard more experience than all your academies! I speak to you Greeks, Latins, Frenchmen, Italians, &c. &c. You will follow me, I shall not follow you. You, I say, doctors of Paris, Montpellier, Dalmatia, of Athens; you Jews, Arabs, Spaniards, English, I tell you all that nature obeys me; and if God does not deign to assist, I have yet the devil to resort to. I am king of all science, and command all the hosts of hell.”
We have in this impostor the very embodiment of the true quacks of to-day; their language is indeed a little subdued, but their pretensions are as large; and, let me add, that whereas Paracelsus, in his days, had the countenance and support of many persons of rank, so in ours, there does not exist an ignorant pretender without the patronage of the great, and this patronage, too often, in the exact ratio of his presumption and falsehood.
It must not be overlooked that this arch imposter died miserably, in poverty, induced by dissipation, and the possessor of the “elixir of immortality” breathed out his drunken soul at the age of fifty.
We have a lively picture of the state of things begotten of this man in the pages of Burton, an example in himself of the power of credulity, and a proof that great scholastic learning was by no means at variance with the wild vagaries of the times. He appears not unconscious of his peculiarities, and offers the following apology for his frequent reference to callings other than his own:—
“If any physician shall infer ‘ne sutor ultra crepidam,’ and be grieved that I have intruded into his profession, I tell him, in brief, he does the same by us:—I know many of his sect who have taken Orders in hope of a Benefice—’tis a common transaction; and why may not a melancholy divine, who can get nothing but by Simony, profess Physic? Marsilius Ficinus was ‘semel et simul,’ a priest and physician, at once ‘sacerdos et medicus;’ and also divers Jesuits are at this time ‘permissu superiorem,’ chirurgeons, panders, bawds and midwives. Many poor vicars, for want of other means, are driven to turn mountebanks, quacksalvers and empirics; and in every village have we not wizards, alchymists, barbers, goodwives, Paracelsians (as they call themselves), possessing great skill, and in such numbers that I marvel how they shall all find employment?”
Burton lived about 1576, and was consequently of the same age as our own great Harvey[Harvey], of whom we shall speak presently.
Let me offer you one specimen on the subject of demoniacal possession, first introducing you to a new character, Cornelius Gemma, who was born at Louvain in 1535, and was one of the greatest scholars of his age, a professor of medicine in his native town (the chair having been conferred upon him by the great Duke of Alva, who governed the low countries), and whose writings embrace the subjects of medicine, mathematics, magic, and spiritual possession. Like Cardan, he was thought a little extreme in some views, but this one example suffices to demonstrate the evil influences of Paracelsus. Gemma, in his second book on natural miracles, says:—“A young maid, called Katherine Gualter, a cooper’s daughter, in the year 1571, had such strange passions that three men could not hold her. She purged a live eel—I myself saw and touched—a foot and a half long; she vomited twenty-four pounds of fulsome stuff of all colours twice a day for fourteen days, and after that great balls of hair, pieces of wood, pigeons’ dung, coals, and after them two pounds of pure blood, and then again coals and stones (of which some had inscriptions) bigger than a walnut. All this I saw with horror. Physic could do no good, so she was handed over to the clergy.”
Marcellus Donatus relates a story of a country fellow who had four knives in his belly, every one a span long, and indented like a saw; also a wreath of hair, and much other baggage. How they “came into his guts” he knew not.
This personal testimony of Gemma is a melancholy proof that the light of christianity, during fifteen centuries, had done but little towards the emancipation of the human mind from the trammels of superstition, for, we find Josephus, who lived A.D. 30, also favoring us with his personal testimony to facts quite as marvellous, and no doubt as veracious, as those recorded by our Dutch philosopher. Yet although common sense rejects such “materials of history” where shall we look for better evidence of authenticity than is thus furnished by two men of unimpeachable integrity. The pride of enlightenment is indeed checked by the reflection that A.D. 1867 we hear of believers in “Spiritual Manifestation” not only among the vulgar but in classes of society where the yearning after the mysterious sets both reason and philosophy at defiance.
The universality of belief in the existence of demons, and their occasional possession of the bodies of men, pervades the whole course of sacred and profane history, and Josephus, in enumerating the great qualities of King Solomon, bears testimony to the power of the Jewish Monarch as an “Exorcist:”—After informing us that Solomon exceeded all men in knowledge of natural things, that he was familiar with every sort of tree, from the cedar to the hyssop on the wall; that he knew the habits of every living creature, whether upon the earth, or in the seas, or in the air, and described their several attributes like a philosopher, and demonstrated his exquisite knowledge of them; he goes on to say:—“God also gave him understanding to attain to skill against demons for the benefit of mankind; for having composed incantations, whereby diseases are removed, he also left behind him certain kinds of exorcisms whereby demons may be expelled so as never to return, and this method of cure is effectual or prevails much among us to this day: for I saw one Eleazar, my countryman, in the presence of Vespasian and his sons, and many tribunes and other soldiers, deliver men who were seized by these demons. The cure was in this manner:—Applying to the nostrils of the demoniacs a ring, having under the seal one of those roots of which Solomon taught the virtues, he drew out the demon from the nostrils of the man who smelled to it:—The man presently falling down, the Exorcist mentioned the name of Solomon, and reciting the charms composed by him, adjured the demon never to return:—Moreover Eleazar, to satisfy all the company of his power, placed a small vessel full of water, in which feet are washed, and commanded the demon as he went out of the man to overthrow it, that all present might be sensible that he had left the man: this being done the wisdom of Solomon was manifest.”