Copy 1, Volume 1

A system of chemistry ... / [Thomas Thomson].

  • Thomas Thomson
Date:
1804
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: A system of chemistry ... / [Thomas Thomson]. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    I© This was owing to the appearance of Theophrastus Paracelsus. This extraordinary man, who was born in 1493, near Zuricli in Switzerland,' was, in the 34th year of his age, after a number of whimsical adven- tures, which had raised his reputation to a great height, appointed by the magistrates of Basil to deliver lectures in their city ; and thus was the first public Professor of chemistry in Europe. In two years he quarrelled with the magistrates, and left the city ; and after run- ning through a complete career of absurdity and de- bauchery, died at Salzburg in the 47th year of his age. The character of this extraordinary man is univer- sally known. That he was an impostor, and boasted of secrets which he did not possess, cannot be denied j that he stole many opinions, and even facts, trom others, is equally true : his arrogance was unsupport- able, his bombast ridiculous, and his whole life a con- tinued tissue of blunders and vice. At the same time, it must be acknowledged that his talents were great, and that his labours were not entirely useless. He con- tributed not a little to dethrone Galen and Avicenna, who at that time ruled pver medicine with absolute power; and to restore Hippocrates and the patient observers of Nature to that chair, from which they ought never to have risen. He certainly gave chemistry an eclat which it did not before possess; and this must hare induced many of those laborious men, who succeeded him, to turn their attention to the science. Nor ought we to forget that, by carrying his speculations con- cerning the philosophers stone, and the universal medi- cine, to the greatest height of absurdity, and by exem- plifying their emptiness and uselesness in his own per-
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