He was believed to have in store one drug--a powerful salt--which he reserved only for the most dangerous cases, and regarding which, though they had never seen the result of its operation, the community spoke with bated breath.

At the vehement request of his mother the mysterious medicine was administered to Goethe at the crisis of his malady, at the hour of midnight, and with all due solemnity.

From that moment his illness took a favourable turn, and he steadily progressed towards recovery.
"I need not say," is his comment, "how greatly this result strengthened and heightened our faith in our physician and our efforts to share such a treasure." Partly, therefore, out of his own insatiable curiosity and partly out of sympathy with his new friends, Goethe now betook himself to occult studies, and, in imitation of the Fraeulein von Klettenberg, had a room fitted up with the necessary chemical apparatus.

It was the first practical commencement of those scientific studies which were subsequently to occupy such a large part of his life.

Along with his chemical experiments went the study of such visionaries in science as Paracelsus, Van Helmont, and others, but also of the great Boerhaave, whose _Institutes of Medicine and Aphorisms_, containing all that was then known of medical theory, he "gladly stamped on his mind and memory." To what extent are we to infer that Goethe really shared the religious views of the circle of pious persons with whom he was now living in daily contact?
His own account we can only regard as half jesting, half serious.