endowed with properties which serve to meet these physical requirements.
Being
already at twenty-eight a surgeon much in advance of his times, though
intolerably arrogant, Paracelsus travelled into Turkey, where he was
made a captive for some while. On his return to his native country he
assumed the title of " ulriusque medicines doctor" ; both
physician and surgeon ! He became appointed to the Chair of Medicine
and Philosophy in the University of Basel. At his first lecture he
ordered a brass vessel to be brought into the middle of the school;
where, after he had cast in sulphur, and nitre, he proceeded to burn,
in a very solemn manner, the books of Galen, and Avicenna, proclaiming
that henceforth the physicians should all follow him ; and no longer
style themselves Galenists, but Paracelsists. " Know, Physicians," said
he, " my cap has more learning in it than all your heads ; my beard has
more experience than all your academies." " The great fame, and success
of this man," said Magus (1801), " have been attributed by many to his
possessing a ' universal medicine.' " It is certain he was well
acquainted with the use of opium ; which the Galenists of those times
rejected (as cold, in the fourth degree). Operinus relates that he made
up certain little pills, of the colour, figure, and size, of
mouse-turds, which were nothing but opium. These he always carried with
him, and prescribed them in most diseases ; particularly if attended
with pain. " To be alone possessed of the use of so extraordinary, and
noble a medicament as opium, was sufficient to make him famous." With
regard to this drug, Lord Macartney has explained that the vulgar
saying, " running a muck," owes its origin to the fact that the Malays,
