1 6 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY 



medicines he introduced into the practise many remedies not authorized 

 nor sanctioned by the medical schools. Preparations of antimony, iron, 

 mercury and opium were prominent among these, and apj:>arently were 

 employed with success in his own practise. To the chemists he espe- 

 cially appealed to abandon the vain search for the making of gold and 

 silver — "the threshing of empty straw" — and to devote their energy 

 and skill to the preparation of new remedies, and to their application 

 to medicine. 



But few of the works of Paracelsus were printed during his lifetime. 

 In several cases the reason for this can be directly traced to the opposi- 

 tion of the medical faculties and their influence upon the public censors 

 or publishers. But he did not cease writing on that account, and some 

 twenty years after his death there began the active publication of his 

 manuscripts. Some of these were autograph manuscripts — others more 

 or less complete copies, or lecture notes edited or expanded by former 

 pupils — some of doubtful authenticity, and others known to be fabrica- 

 tions published by anonymous writers. It is still difficult in many cases 

 to be certain as to the authenticity of some of the many treatises attrib- 

 uted to him. Their popularity and influence during the succeeding 

 century was very great, as is evidenced by the fact that the Paracelsus 

 bibliography by Sudhoff enumerates no less than 390 titles of printed 

 publications up to 1658, when the last and best known Latin edition of 

 his collected works made its appearance. Among these were four edi- 

 tions of his collected works in German and two in Latin. 



Through the mass of writings of Paracelsus are scattered, rather 

 than systematically gathered, the chemical facts and theories which 

 comprise his contribution to chemical literature. Together they form 

 a considerable body of chemical knowledge, descriptions of chemical 

 processes and substances known in his time with much of speculative 

 theory. There is no evidence that he added in any important way to 

 the chemical knowledge of his time. Though the first announcement 

 of some chemical facts appear in his writings, he makes no assumption 

 of originality in their announcement, any more than do Agricola and 

 Biringuccio in their works. It was rather by his evident familiarity 

 with the chemistry of his time, and the novel and radical application 

 of chemical preparations in the practise of medicine, that he challenged 

 the attention of the chemists of his time. Here his influence was epoch- 

 making. In the field of chemical theory he shows greater originality, 

 and while much of his speculations are fantastic in the fashion of the 

 philosophy of the time, yet in other directions he exerted important 

 influence. 



One very influential contribution to chemical theory, however, is to 

 be attributed to Paracelsus. This was the theory of the three prin- 

 ciples — the "tria prima." It will be remembered that the early al- 

 chemists had recognized the peculiar relation of sulphur to the occur- 



