CUERVO - Biblioteca Nacional de Colombia

PARACELSUS 131
the Universities of Germany, France, and Italy; and in spite of his
boasting himself to have been the ornament of those institutions,
there is no proof of his having legally acquired the title of Doctor,
which he assumes. It is only known that he applied himself long,
under the direction of the wealthy Sigismond Fugger of Schwatz,
to the discovery of the Magnum Opus.
" Paracelsus travelled among tlle mountains of Bohemia, in the
East, and in Sweden, in order to inspect the labours of the miners,
to be initiated in the mysteries of the oriental adepts, and to observe
the secrets of nature and the famous mountain of loadstone. C)
He professes also to have visited Spain, Portugal, Prussia, Poland,
and Transylvania; everywhere communicating freely, not merely
with the physicians, but the old women, charlatans and conjurers
of these several lands. It is even believed that he extended his
journeyings as far as Egypt and Tartary, and that he accompanied
the son of the Khan of the Tartars to Constantinople, for the purpose
of obtaining the secret of the tincture of Trismegistus from a Greek
who inhabited that capital.
.. The period of his return to Germany is unknown : it is only
certain that, at about the age of thirty-tluee, many astonishing cures
which he wrought on eminent personages procured him such a
celebrity, that he was called in 1526, on the recommendation of
CEcolarupadius, «) to fill a chair of physic and surgery at the University
of Basil. There Paracelsus began by burning publicly in the
amphitheatre the worl{s of Avicenna and Galen, assuring his auditors
that the latchets of his shoes were more instructed than those two
physicians; that all Universities, all writers put together, were less
gifted than the hairs of his beard and of the crown of his head;
and that, in a word, he was to be regarded as the legitimate monarch
of medicine. 'You shall follow me,' cried he, 'you, Avicenna, Galen,
Rhasis, Montagnana, Mesues, you, gentlemen of Paris, Montpellier,
Germany, Cologne, Vienna, * and whomsoever the Rhine and Danube
nourish; you who inhabit the isles of the sea; you, likewise, Dalmatians,
Athenians; thou, Arab; thou, Greek; thou, Jew; all
shall follow me, and the monarchy shall be mine: t
.. But at Basil it was speedily perceived that the new Professor
was no better than an egregious quack. Scarccly a year elapsed
before his lectures had fairly driven away an audience incapable of
.. Erastus, who relates this, here oddly remarks, .. miTum quod
non et Garamantos, Indos et Anglos adjunxit." Not so wonderful
neither, if we believe what another adversary" had heard somewhere,"-tllat
all Paracelsus' system came of his pillaging" Anglum
quendam, Rogerium Bacchonem."
t See his works passim. I must give one specimen :-Somebody
lJad been styling him " 'Luther alter." "And wlJy not 1" (he
asks, as he well might). "Luther is abundantly learned, therefore
you hate him and me; but we are at least a match for you.-Nam
et contra vos et vestros universos principes Avicennam, Galenum,
Aristotelem, etc. me satis superque munitum esse novi. Et vertex
iste meus calvus ac depilis multo plura et sublimiora novit quam
vester vel A vicenna vel universre academire. Prodite, et signum
date, qui viti sitis, quid roboris habeatis ? quid autem sitis? Doctores
et magistri, pedicuJos pectentes et fricantes podicem:' (Frag. Med.)
©Biblioteca Nacional de Colombia