I have already quoted his sane remark that its chief service is in seeking remedies.

But there is another side to this question.

If, as seems fairly certain, the Basil Valentine whose writings were supposed to have inspired Paracelsus was a hoax and his works were made up in great part from the writings of Paracelsus, then to our medical Luther, and not to the mythical Benedictine monk, must be attributed a great revival in the search for the Philosopher's Stone, for the Elixir of Life, for a universal medicine, for the perpetuum mobile and for an aurum potabile.( 37) I reproduce, almost at random, a page from the fifth and last part of the last will and testament of Basil Valentine (London, 1657), from which you may judge the chemical spirit of the time.
(36) Withington: Medical History from the Earliest Times, London, 1891, Scientific Press, p.

317.
(37) See Professor Stillman on the Basil Valentine hoax, Popular Science Monthly, New York, 1919, LXXXI, 591-600.
Out of the mystic doctrines of Paracelsus arose the famous "Brothers of the Rosy Cross." "The brotherhood was possessed of the deepest knowledge and science, the transmutation of metals, the perpetuum mobile and the universal medicine were among their secrets; they were free from sickness and suffering during their lifetime, though subject finally to death."(38) (38) Ferguson: Bibliotheca Chemica, Vol.

II, p.290.