The most colossal figure in this collection of mediaeval charlatans and knaves was Paracelsus. He was born in 1493, near Zurich, of a well-to-do family, his father being a physician. He had a good preliminary education, and then visited the various universities, or rather university towns; but, instead of listening to the professors, Paracelsus associated with clever women, barbers, magicians, alchemists, and the like, from whom he acquired much information. He was led at once to the vagaries of the cabal, and, according to his own statement, he did not open a book for ten years. He neglected his studies and forgot his Latin, so that he became incapable of expressing himself in{144} that language. From the age of twenty-five he became a hard drinker, and this habit ultimately worked his ruin. One of his disciples says of him that during the two years which he passed with him he was so inclined to drinking and debauchery that he could scarcely be seen for an hour or two without being full of wine, although that condition did not prevent him from being admired by every one as a second Æsculapius. At this time Paracelsus was between thirty-three and thirty-five years of age, and at, apparently, the most brilliant period of his life. He had written extensively and with emphasis of his numerous cures, after the fashion of charlatans of those days,--and, unfortunately, of to-day,--and claimed to be possessed of infallible secrets against the most intractable diseases. He had just been called to Basel to the chair of physic and surgery, and crowds of curious and idle persons attended his lectures, which he gave in the vernacular, and not, as was customary in those days, in Latin. In order to strike his auditors with astonishment, he began by burning the works of Galen and Avicenna, and then reading from his own writings, breaking off from time to time into the statement: "Know, ye doctors, that my hat knows more than you; that my beard is more experienced than your academies. Greeks, Latins, Arabians, French, Italians, Jews, Christians, and Mohammedans, you must follow me; I shall not follow you, for I am your monarch, and sovereignty belongs to me." As may be imagined, his professorship was not one of long duration, and he soon had few or no listeners. In consequence of some mishaps he left Basel quite precipitately, his departure causing no such sensation as his arrival. He then resumed his nomadic life, and we find him at Alsace in 1528, at Nuremberg in 1529, at St. Galle in 1531, at Mindelheim in 1540, and in the following year at Salzburg, where he died in the hospital at the age of forty-eight.