0"T' LAERT> "! - USP

THE PROGRESS OF SCIENCE.
3°9
plans and, in the strife with the conditions which surrounded
him, lost all; lost even himself. But these sad facts
cannot rob him of the credit of having rendered a great
service to medicine in combating the theory of juices
as held by the ancients, and in being the first to give ex­
pression to the thought that the processes of life are of a
chemical nature, and that chemical changes form the con­
ditions of health and disease. He recognized the falsity of
the doctrine derived from ancient times that the heart is the
source of heat, and said that every part of the body con­
tains its own source of heat.* He referred to the analogy
between gout and calculous diseases, saying that both are
characterised by the deposit of solid material, and he
recommended the use of alkaline waters in these cases.
The internal employment of various chemical, and especially
mineral, substances was first attempted by him. To this
category belong mercury in different forms, several combi­
nations of lead, antimonial medicines, precipitated sulphur,
sulphate of copper, ferric oxide, and other preparations of
iron. PARACELSUS declared that the task of chemistry 1
was not the fabrication of gold, but the production, of
medicines. He devoted diligent study to that science,t
and was the first to avail himself of tincture of galls for
determining the presence of iron in mineral waters.
The evil results entailed by the too long continued use
of certain minerals—as, for instance, mercury—did not
escape his notice. He had learnt to recognize them among
the workmen in the mines of Idria. In the same way he .,,
described the effects of arsenic, and the diseases to which
miners are exposed in smelting many metals. In taking ,;,'
chemistry out of the hands of the alchemists, and in making
it useful to medical science, he gave an incentive to the
treatment of it in a scientific manner, and to the foundation
of a medical chemistry.
The effects of these circumstances were seen in pharma-
* PARACELSUS : Paramirum, Lib. i.
t KOPP : Gesch. der Chemie op. cit. i., 96.