5O The Triumphal Chariot of Antimony. 



of Medicine (save the mark ! ) who do 

 not know the difference between a poison 

 and a theriac, nor yet how a poison shall 

 be prepared in order that it may become 

 a salutary medicine, and exchange its 

 malignancy for health-giving qualities. I 

 protest against being numbered amongst 

 the persons who administer to their pa- 

 tients orpiment, arsenic, and mercury, 

 which, in their unprepared state, are, 

 of course, deadly poisons.* But after 

 legitimate preparation all venom is re- 

 moved and expelled, and there remains 

 only a Medicine which resists all 

 internal poisons, and radically removes 

 them. It is also the surest antidote 

 against every unprepared poison, and 



*At the time when Basilius wrote, the ignorance of 

 certain physicians was so great that they administered as 

 medicines many poisons in their raw and unpurified state, 

 and ignorantly proscribed the means by which the Alchemists 

 rendered them truly salutary to the human system. Against 

 these pseudo-doctors honest Basilius and his friends were 

 wont to inveigh with the greatest sharpness. But in this 

 imperfect world truth is not necessarily victorious, and 

 though the Alchemists had the better cause, their opponents 

 had the advantage of numbers. Yet, even then, Paracelsus 

 foresaw the dawn of better times which should be ushered in 

 by the coming of the Artist Elias. 



