HIS TOE F OF AL CHEMY. 46 1 



alchemists. He was born in 1493, near Zurich in Switzerland. His flither, 

 who was a physician, instructed him in medicine, after which he placed him 

 under the most noted alchemists of the time. He is said to have traveled 

 through every country in Europe, consulting ph^'sicians, quacks, old women 

 or magicians indiscriminately, in order to gain information. At the age of 

 twenty he was captured ]dj the Tartars and carried before the Czar of Eus- 

 sia, and afterwards accompanied his son to Constantinople, where he claims 

 he discovered the philosopher's stone. He gained a notoriety as a physician, 

 by curing syphilis with mercury, and by the free use of opium in the cure 

 and alleviation of disease. In the thirty-fourth year of his age he was ap- 

 pointed Professor of Physics and Natural Philosophy in the University of 

 Basle. He was thus the first public Professor of Chemistry in Europe. His 

 lectures, which attracted a vast number of students, are said to have been 

 full of bombast and self-laudation. He treated the physicians of his time 

 with the greatest insolence, telling them " that the very down of his bald 

 pate had more knowledge than all their writers; the buckles of his shoes 

 more learning than G-alen or Avicenna, and his beard more exj)erience than 

 all their universities." He boasted of the possession of secrets which would 

 prolong life, and even proposed himself to live to the age of Methuselah. 

 The fact is, says one author, "he had made the discovery of alcohol, and 

 thought that in it he had found the long sought elixir of life. Parcelsus 

 determined to put it to the test, and drinking copiously of his alcohol (with 

 a daring worthy a better cause) he sank dead on the floor of his laboratory." 



Thus ended the days of one of the most remarkable scientific men that 

 ever lived. While living he was degraded and mean, insolent and bombas- 

 tic. He stole the opinions of others and propagated them as his own, 

 carrying the idea of the philosopher's stone and the universal medicine to 

 such a ridiculous extent, and then exemplifying their emptyness by his own 

 tragic death while vainly endeavoring to prolong his life. In this he un- 

 doubtedly did much towards dispelling the illusions from the minds of 

 thinking men. 



During and for some time previous'to Paracelsus there existed another 

 class of men, a set of mountebanks, vile pretenders, who, taking advantage 

 of the ignorance of- the people, passed juggling tricks for true Alchemy. 

 'They pretended to have the philosopher's stone, and offered to impart the 

 secret to others for a certain sum of money. One of these quacks having 

 invested his loose change in a nail constructed one-half of gold and the 

 other iron, and having mastered a few chemical terms, would start on his 

 mission. Meeting an individual with more money than brains, he would 

 carelessly draw from his pocket a handfull of nails, selecting the proper one. 

 From a vial, said to contain the magic elixir, he would expend the last drop 

 in converting the nail into gold. The vial contained only colored water, 

 with which he would wash the paint off the nail. Presenting it to his vic- 

 tim as a sample of what he could do, he was from that moment master of 

 his purse until it was exhausted or its owner, tired out by rej)eated failures 



