"Love leaves nothing entire or sound in man; it impedes his sleep, he cannot rest either day or night; it takes off his appetite that he hath no disposition either to meat or drink by reason of the continual torments of his heart and mind. It deprives him of all Providence, hence he neglects his affairs, vocation, and business. He minds neither study, labor, nor prayer; casts away all thoughts of anything but the body beloved; this is his study, this his most vain occupation. If to lovers the success be not answerable to their wish, or so soon and prosperously as they desire, how many melancholies henceforth arise, with griefs and sadness, with which they pine away and wax so lean as they have scarcely any flesh cleaving to the bones. Yea, at last they lose the life itself, as may be proved by many examples! for such men (which is an horrible thing to think of) slight and neglect all perils and detriments, both of the body and life, and of the soul and eternal salvation." It is evident that human nature is not different in our sophisticated twentieth century from that which this observant old monk saw around him in the fifteenth. He continues: "How many testimonies of this violence which is in love, are daily found? for it not only inflames the younger sort, but it so far exaggerates some persons far gone in years as through the burning heat thereof, they are almost mad. Natural diseases are for the most part governed by the complexion of man and therefore invade some more fiercely, others more gently; but Love, without distinction of poor or rich, young or old, seizeth all, and having seized so blinds them as forgetting all rules of reason, they neither see nor hear any snare." But then the old monk thinks that he has said enough about this rather foreign subject, and apolo what Goodness of Minde is in these men! what care do they take of the sick! Wo, wo to them! in the day of Judgement they will find the fruit of their Ignorance and Rashness, then they will see him whom they pierced, when they neglected their Neighbor, sought after money and nothing else; whereas were they cordial in their profession, they would spend Nights and Days in Labour that they might become more learned in their Art, whence more certain health would accrew to the sick with their estimation and greater glory to themselves. But since Labour is tedious to them they commit the matter to chance, and being secure of their Honour, and content with their Fame, they (like Brawlers) defend themselves with a certain garrulity, without any respect had to Confidence or Truth." Perhaps one of the reasons why Valentine's book has been of such enduring interest is that it is written in an eminently human vein and out of a lively imagination. It is full of figures relating to many other things besides chemistry, which serve to show how deeply this investigating observer was attentive to all the problems of life around him. For instance, when he wants to describe the affinity that exists between many substances in chemistry, and which makes it impossible for them not to be attracted to one another, he takes a figure from the attractions that he sees exist among men and women. It is curious to find affinities discussed in our modern sense so long ago. There are some paragraphs with regard to the influence of the passion of love that one might think rather a quotation from an old-time sermon than from a great ground-breaking book in the science of chemistry. "Love leaves nothing entire or sound in man; it impedes his sleep, he cannot rest either day or night; it takes off his appetite that he hath no disposition either to meat or drink by reason of the continual torments of his heart and mind. It deprives him of all Providence, hence he neglects his affairs, vocation, and business. He minds neither study, labor, nor prayer; casts away all thoughts of anything but the body beloved; this is his study, this his most vain occupation. If to lovers the success be not answerable to their wish, or so soon and prosperously as they desire, how many melancholies henceforth arise, with griefs and sadness, with which they pine away and wax so lean as they have scarcely any flesh cleaving to the bones. Yea, at last they lose the life itself, as may be proved by many examples! for such men (which is an horrible thing to think of) slight and neglect all perils and detriments, both of the body and life, and of the soul and eternal salvation." It is evident that human nature is not different in our sophisticated twentieth century from that which this observant old monk saw around him in the fifteenth. He continues: "How many testimonies of this violence which is in love, are daily found? for it not only inflames the younger sort, but it so far exaggerates some persons far gone in years as through the burning heat thereof, they are almost mad. Natural diseases are for the most part governed by the complexion of man and therefore invade some more fiercely, others more gently; but Love, without distinction of poor or rich, young or old, seizeth all, and having seized so blinds them as forgetting all rules of reason, they neither see nor hear any snare." But then the old monk thinks that he has said enough about this rather foreign subject, and apolo order, and went through France and Spain on a pilgrimage to St. James of Compostella. 66 Besides this work, there is a number of other books of Basil Valentine's, printed during the first half of the sixteenth century, that are well known and copies of which may be found in most of the important libraries. The United States Surgeon General's Library at Washington contains not a few of the works on medical subjects, and the New York Academy of Medicine Library has some valuable editions of certain of his works. Some of his other well-known books, each of which is a good-sized octavo volume, bear the following descriptive titles (I give them in English, though as they are usually found, they are in Latin, sixteenth-century translations of the original German): " The World in Miniature: or, The Mystery of the World and of Human Medical Science," published at Mayburg, 1609; "The Chemical Apocalypse: or, The Manifestation of Artificial Chemical Compounds," published in Erfurt in 1624; "A Chemico-Philosophic Treatise Concerning Things Natural and Preternatural, Especially Relating to the Metals and the Minerals,' published at Frankfurt in 1676; "Haliography: or, The Science of Salts: A Treatise on the Preparation, Use, and Chemical Properties of All the Mineral, Animal, and Vegetable Salts," published at Bologna in 1644; "The Twelve Keys of Philosophy," Leipsic, 1630. These are of interest to the chemist and physicist rather than to the physician, and it is as a Maker of Medicine that we are concerned with Valentine here. The great attention aroused in Basil Valentine's work at the Renaissance period can be best realized from the number of manuscript copies and their wide distribution. His books were not all printed at one place, but, on the contrary, in different portions of Europe. The original edition of "The Triumphal Chariot of Antimony" was published in Leipsic in the early part of the sixteenth century. The first editions of the other books, however, appeared at places so distant from Leipsic as Amsterdam and Bologna, while various cities of Germany, as Erfurt and Frankfurt, claim the original editions of still other works. Many of the manuscript copies still exist in various libraries in Europe; and while there is no doubt that some unimportant additions to the supposed works of Basil Valentine have come from the attribution to him of scientific treatises of other German writers, the style and the method of the principal works mentioned is entirely too similar not to have been the fruit of a single mind and that possessed of a distinct investigating genius, setting it far above any of its contemporaries in scientific speculation and observa tion. The most interesting feature of all of Basil Valentine's writings that are extant is the distinctive tendency to make his observations of special practical utility. His studies in antimony were made mainly with the idea of showing how that substance might be used in medicine. He did not neglect to point out other possible uses, however, and knew the secret of the employment of antimony in order to give sharpness and definition to the impression produced by metal types. It would seem as though he was |