Theophrastus was an only child. He was born in 1490 or 1491, and owed to his father the first inclination of his mind towards medicine and alchemy. Later he was taught classics at a convent school, and at 16 went to the University of Basel. Apparently he did not stay there long. Classical studies, and the reverence of authorities, which the Universities taught, never attracted him. He is found next at Wurzburg, in the laboratory of Trithemius, an abbot of that city, and a famous adept in alchemy, astrology, and magic generally. He must have acquired much chemical skill in that laboratory, and, doubtless, many of his mystic views began to shape themselves under the instruction of the learned abbot. But Paracelsus was not content with the artificial ideas of the alchemists. By some means he became acquainted with the wealthy Sigismund Fugger, a mine owner in the Tyrol, and either as assistant or friend he joined him. The Fuggers were the Rothschilds of Germany at that time, and one of them entertained Charles V at Augsburg, when the famous diet at which the Emperor was to crush the Reformation was held in that city. On that occasion the wealthy merchant made a cinnamon fire for the Emperor, and lighted it with a bond representing a large sum which Charles owed him. In the Tyrolese mines Paracelsus learned much about minerals, about diseases, and about men. Then he travelled through various parts of Europe, paying his way by his medical and surgical skill, or, as his enemies said, by conjuring and necromancy. He states that he was in the wars in Venice, Denmark, and the Netherlands; it is supposed as an army surgeon, for he afterwards declared that he then learned to cure forty diseases of the body. He boasted that he learned from gypsies, physicians, barbers, executioners, and from all kinds of people. He claims also to have been in Tartary, and to have accompanied the Khan’s son to Constantinople. Van Helmont tells us that it was in this city that he met an adept who gave him the philosopher’s stone. Other chroniclers relate that this adept was a certain Solomon Trismensinus, who also possessed the elixir of life, and had been met with some two hundred years later. Although Paracelsus in his writings appears to hold the current belief in the transmutation of metals, and in the possibility of producing medicines capable of indefinitely prolonging life, he wasted no energy in dreaming about these, as the alchemists generally did. The production of gold does not seem to have interested him, and his aims in medicine were always eminently practical. It is true that he named his compounds catholicons, elixirs, and panaceas, but they were all real remedies for specific complaints; and in the treatment of these he must have been marvellously successful.