A SEVENTEENTH-CENTURY HOAX 593 



element which gives volatility, sulphur as that which burns, and salt 

 as that which neither burns nor volatilizes in the heat. 



Paracelsus also used and advocated the use of many metallic prepa- 

 rations for medicines, as preparations of mercury, antimony, lead and 

 arsenic. He recognized the poisonous character of them when used in 

 excess, but emphasizes that poisons may be used to advantage in medi- 

 cine in proper doses. 



These and similar announcements scattered through his writings 

 marked Paracelsus as a chemist of importance, if they were derived from 

 his own experience, and not borrowed from some other source. 



But Paracelsus was a physician who had incurred the antagonism 

 and enmity of the great majority of the orthodox medical profession. 

 He had repudiated the doctrines of Galen and Avicenna, their almost 

 sacred authorities. He held their knowledge up to contempt in lecture 

 and in writings and savagely attacked the practises and the ethics of the 

 profession. Their opposition he met with arrogant defiance. As his 

 following increased, the warfare between the Galenists and the Paracels- 

 ists increased in bitterness, and for a century after his death the con- 

 test continued with bitterness. The result was a partial victory for the 

 chemical medicines introduced by Paracelsus, but there also resulted a 

 gradual discrediting of Paracelsus by the growth of a mass of legends 

 derogatory of his ability and character, most of which have since been 

 shown to be baseless, but which his faults and weaknesses served to make 

 credible. While this warfare was still at its height, at the beginning of 

 the seventeenth century, there appeared a number of printed books, 

 published by Johann Tholde, purporting to be from old manuscripts 

 and to be written by a monk of the Benedictine order — Basilius Valen- 

 tinus. By far the most important of these was the " Triumph-wagen 

 des Antimons," or "Triumphal Chariot of Antimony," (1604), which 

 contained, with much that was mystical and obscure, as was the fashion 

 of most chemical literature of the time, nevertheless a remarkably clear 

 treatment of the preparation and properties of many compounds of 

 antimony, and of their application to medicine. This work attracted 

 deserved attention, and other works which appeared under the same 

 author's name about the same time and later shared in this popularity. 

 That all of these were by the same hand as the " Chariot " is certainly 

 not true, especially the later publications. 



It was soon noticed that nearly all the above mentioned contributions 

 of Paracelsus to chemistry were contained in the work of the newly dis- 

 covered author, and often more thoroughly explained and more compre- 

 hensively treated than in Paracelsus, though sometimes the opposite 

 was the case. 



Basil Valentine had also spoken of zinc and bismuth and called 

 them bastards of the metals. He had also noted the action of oil of 



