6 PARACELSUS 



His doctrines were essentially doctrines of his own, and 

 he taught them independently of the opinions of others, 

 gaining thereby the applause of his students, and horri- 

 fying his orthodox colleagues by his contravention of 

 their established custom of teaching nothing but what 

 could be well supported by old and accepted authorities, 

 irrespective of whether or not it was compatible with 

 reason and truth. 



"^ He held at the same time the office of city physician, 

 and in that capacity he offered a resolution to the City 

 Council of Basel to the effect that the apothecaries of that 

 city should be subjected to his supervision, and that he 

 should be permitted to examine whether or not the com- 

 pounders of medicines understood their business, and to 

 ascertain whether they had a sufficient quantity of pure 

 and genuine drugs on hand, so that he might prevent 

 them from asking exorbitant prices for their goods. 



The consequence of this measure was, as might have 

 been expected, that he drew upon himself the concen- 

 trated hatred of all the druggists and apothecaries ; and 

 the other physicians and professors, jealous of his success 

 in teaching medicine and curing diseases, joined in the 

 persecution, under the pretext that his appointment as a 

 professor at the university had been made without their 

 consent, and that Paracelsus was a stranger, of whom 

 "nobody knew where he came from," and furthermore 

 that they did not know whether or not he was " a real 

 ^octor." But perhaps all these annoyances and vilifi- 

 cations would have had no serious consequences if he 

 had not made the members of the City Council his 

 enemies by writing a severe publication against a 

 decision which he considered very unjust, and which was 

 rendered in favour of a certain Canonicus Cornelius of 

 Lichtenfels, whom he had saved from death after the 

 latter had been given up to die by the other physicians, 

 and who had acted very ungratefully towards him. The 

 consequence of his hasty action was, that he had to leave 



