He sang odes in his own honor, and was never weary of celebrating his great self. There was a complacent cocksureness about him that would have roused the ire of a turtledove. 'Tell me, Galenic doctor,' he jauntily asks, on what foundation you stand? Have you ever cured Podagra, have you ever dared to attack leprosy, or healed dropsy? Truly I think you will be silent and allow that Paracelsus is your master. If you really wish to learn, listen to what I say, attend to what I write.' Such vanity overtops the loftiest peaks of his native Alps. Compared to Paracelsus, the magpie is shy and the peacock modest. Now we have said the worst about him; but does it explain how he discovered Zinc?

It is fortunate for medicine that Paracelsus did not succeed in wiping out Galen, who was the more scientific and less fantastic of the two. Paracelsus lived in superstitious times, and was a son of his age. He believed there were spirits in the air, gnomes in the earth, nymphs in the water, and salamanders in the fire. He reveled in the mysteries of the kabala; he adored astrology; he was an adept in alchemy; he invented the alkahest. From his wanderings in the Orient he brought home outlandish mixtures of spiritism, theosophy, occultism, and other crazy creeds which find adherents even in the twentieth century.

But it is extremely fortunate for medicine that Paracelsus fought Galen, for the physician of Pergamus cast an hypnotic spell over the profession. For several centuries physicians argued in this manner: 'Galen said so; ergo, it must be so. Not all your experiments or observations are of any value.' New evidence was not permitted to displace Galen's old errors. In this poisonous atmosphere Science could not breathe. When we recall such criminal reverence for authority, we can forgive the dictum of the judicious Boerhaave: 'Galen has done more harm than good.'

Paracelsus did not tread the accepted path with closed eyes. His radicalism was needed, his influence was healthy. He who breaks up superstitious veneration for the past, be

comes a benefactor of the future. His fault lay in his attempt to replace the authority of Galen by the authority of Paracelsus, and for this he is blameworthy. But he was the yeast that leavened the medical dough. The lance of his free wit punctured many an orthodox error. He smote the pedestals of falsehood, and the unclean images fell. Festus, I plunge!

Paracelsus' conception of medicine was due to a sort of neo-platonic pantheism - whatever that may be and was based on the relationship that man the microcosm bears to nature the macrocosm. 'There is nothing in heaven and earth,' he says, 'which is not in man, and God who is in heaven is also in man.' He believed that diseases were caused by the action of certain constituents in the universe acting on the corresponding elements in man. Therefore in order to be able to treat man, it was necessary to understand all nature. No theory could well be more irrational than this, and it naturally led Paracelsus to serious errors. For if disease is due to a conflict between the macrocosmus and the microcosmus, it follows that Astrology is more important for a physician than Anatomy, and it seems that Paracelsus actually thought so!

Paracelsus claimed that medicine rests on four pillars: Philosophy, Astronomy, Alchemy, Virtue. He defined these terms differently than we do now, but on the whole we may say that these pillars, like the columns of the Roman Forum, have fallen: a test-tube is stronger than them all.

Paracelsus agreed with Basil Valentine that man and the entire universe were composed of three primary mystic elements: mercury, sulphur, salt. Whatever sublimes is mercury; whatever burns is sulphur; whatever remains is salt.

He anticipated the mesmerism of Mesmer, and the similia similibus curantur of Hahnemann - for which anticipations we need not be especially thankful to him.

Paracelsus believed that medicines, like women, were known by their shapes. It was his theory that everything in nature

was made for the human race, and that God put his signature on all drugs. The orchis-root is testiculate and therefore should be used for diseases of the testicle; the flower of the euphrasia has a black spot which indicates that it should be used for the pupil of the eye; if a plant has more than one color, it means it possesses more than one therapeutic property; the juice of celendine is yellow, and consequently good for jaundice; the spines of a thistle will heal pains in the side. Why should frogs be used for plagues? That's easy; because frogs are disgusting and plagues are disgusting.

Of course Paracelsus had many recipes for the prolongation of life. And not only did he think we could live indefinitely, but he believed a human embryo could be created by chemical means. This is now considered impossible, but before 1828 it was likewise deemed impossible to manufacture an organic compound in a laboratory. Paracelsus' dream may yet be realized; surely Jacques Loeb has made a magnificent beginning. But this is perhaps a problem for the twenty-fifth century.

Little will here be said concerning Paracelsus' notions on Magic. We have scant inclination to elucidate his aniadum and aquastor, or explain his evestrum and erodinium. We feel no interest in his hidden iliasters, ultimate essences, sidereal bodies, astral corpses, haunted houses and poisoned moons. Expositions of such vagaries may well be left to unsound mediums like Helen Blavatsky and insane mystics like Franz Hartmann.

Out of these voluminous writings on Mystery we will content ourselves with two short extracts: the first, disgusting; the second, delightful. In De Pestilitate he says, 'But if a witch desires to poison a man with her eyes, she will go to a place where she expects to meet him. When he approaches she will look into the poisoned mirror, and then, after hiding the mirror, look into his eyes, and the influence of the poison passes from the mirror into her eyes and from her eyes into the eyes of that person; but a witch may cure her own eyes

by making a fire and staring into it, and then taking the menstrual cloth, and after tying it around a stone, throwing it into the fire. After the cloth is burnt, she extinguishes the fire with her urine, and her eyes will be cured; but her enemy may become blind.'

From his De Morbis Amentium we quote a pleasanter passage: Some will fall deeply in love with the person who administered to them these philtres prepared by sorcerers; and it has happened that in this way masters and mistresses have fallen deeply in love with servants who administered them such things; and thus they became themselves the servants of their own servants. Even horses, dogs and other animals have thus been brought under the influence of such spells. If women administer such things to men the latter may fall so deeply in love with the former as to be unable to think of anything else but them; and if men administer such things to women, the latter will continually think of them.'

So far the reader has had no glimpse of the promised Paracelsian pearls. Let us begin by stating that altho Paracelsus himself was a star in the alchemical sky, he asserted 'the object of true alchemy is not to make gold but to prepare medicines.' It was he who made chemistry the handmaid of medicine, and inaugurated the era of iatro-chemistry. Festus, I plunge!

His followers-Spagyrists they were called ceased to look for the Philosopher's Stone that cures the diseases of metals, and commenced to search for various remedies to heal the ills of mankind. Paracelsus himself enriched the Materia Medica.

Tin was known from the remotest antiquity, Moses and Homer mention it, the Phoenicians traded in it a thousand years before Christ, but it remained for Paracelsus to suggest the use of stanni pulvis as an anthelmintic.

Paracelsus brought Antimony into special vogue, but credit for first mention of its medicinal properties belongs to that

strange monk, Basil Valentine. We do not know of anyone who employed the lead salts for internal treatment, prior to Paracelsus. He had much to do with the introduction of copper sulphate into therapeutics. He was largely instrumental in adding iron salts and milk of sulphur to the medical armamentarium.

The discovery of zinc must be accredited to Paracelsus; at any rate he is the first to mention zinc as a separate metal, distinct from its alloy. The passage in which he refers to it is worth quoting for historical reasons:

'There is another metal, zinc, which is in general unknown. It is a distinct metal of a different origin, tho adulterated with many other metals. It can be melted, for it consists of three principles, but it is not malleable. In its color it is unlike all others, and does not grow in the same manner; but with its ultima materia I am as yet unacquainted, for it is almost as strange in its properties as argentum vivum. It admits of no mixture, will not bear the fabricationes of other metals, but keeps itself entirely to itself.’

He was the first to use zinc oxide and zinc sulphate medicinally; he showed how to purify the latter. As far as we know, Paracelsus was the first who was acquainted with ethereal oil.

Paracelsus' favorite remedy was what he called laudanum, - which to-day means tincture of opium. The interesting and even important question arises if his laudanum was similar to laudanum liquidum Sydenhami. Nearly all authors answer in the affirmative, but Dr Monsarrat denies it with angry emphasis, and hotly insists that Paracelsus' laudanum never even saw opium. It should be remarked, however, that Dr Monsarrat sees little good in Paracelsus. There is no doubt that Paracelsus, against the opposition of the Galenists, did much to advance the therapeutic reputation of opium - tho we are here met by the puzzle that Galen himself had recommended it.

It follows that Paracelsus' idea that chemistry should be