MEDICINE 197 



of three things — i.e., Sulphur, Mercury, and Salt. As a 

 million of figures are (potentially) contained in a rough 

 piece of wood from which a woodcutter may cut one 

 or many images or forms ; so many hundred different 

 diseases may be produced from the Corpus of man, and 

 yet it is but a single Corpus; and as all the wooden 

 images may be consumed by one fire, so there is one 

 Fire in the universal storehouse of Nature which con- 

 sumes that which is impure and separates it from that 

 which is pure." 



" A painter paints a picture upon a piece of wood, 

 and you will then see the picture, but not the wood ; 

 but a wet rag may wipe out all that the painter has 

 made. Thus we have been cut out by the hand of God, 

 and He formed us in the three Substances and painted 

 us all over with Life, but death wipes out the picture. 

 Therefore we should not allow ourselves to be seduced 

 by the temptations of life, seeing that they are nothing 

 but illusions, resembling colours which in themselves 

 are neither red, nor yellow, nor green, but merely 

 appear to be so to the eye. Death too has its colours, 

 and if the colour of death takes the place of the colour 

 of life, death gets the mastery over life ; these two 

 colours the physician should know, but they do not 

 explain the disease ; they are merely outward signs, and 

 as such they are illusive" (Faramir., i. 5). 



" It is erroneous to speak of Fever as if this were 

 disease. The name * fever ' refers to the heat of the 

 disease, and this heat is merely a symptom ; it is neither 

 the cause nor the substance of the disease ; it would 

 be more appropriate to call it Morbus Nitri or Morhus 

 Sulphuris iucensi. * Apoplexy * is a misnomer ; because 

 it is caused by a sublimation of Mercury, and ought to 

 be more properly called Mercurius Cachinialis Subli- 

 matus} The same may be said in regard to many other 



^ This might perhaps be translated as " a congestion of blood to the 

 brain caused by overworking the brain, or overloading it with a bad 

 nervous aura." 



