Whether he ever went to Tartary or not, and whether he served in any wars or not, may be doubtful. His critics find no evidence of acquaintance with foreign languages or customs in his works, and they do find indications of very elementary notions of geography. But it is certain that for ten years he was peregrinating somewhere; if his travels were confined to Germany the effect was the same. Germany was big enough to teach him. Passionately eager to wrest from Nature all her secrets, gifted with extraordinary powers of observation and imagination, with unbounded confidence in himself, and bold even to recklessness as an experimenter, this was a man who could not be suppressed. Armed with his new and powerful drugs, and not afraid to administer them, cures were inevitable; other consequences also, in all probability. When, therefore, Paracelsus arrived at Basel, in the year 1525, in the thirty-second year of his age, his fame had preceded him. Probably he was backed by high influence. According to his own account he had cured eighteen princes during his travels, and some of these may have recommended him to the University authorities. It is to the credit of Paracelsus that he was warmly supported by the saintly priest Œcolampadius (Hausschein), who subsequently threw in his lot with the reformers. Besides being appointed to the chair of medicine and surgery, Paracelsus was made city physician. His lectures were such as had never been heard before at a university. He began his course by burning the works of Galen and Avicenna in a chafing dish, and denouncing the slavish reliance on authority which at that time characterised medical teaching and practice. He taught from his own experience, and he gave his lectures in German. Many quotations of his boastful utterance have been handed down to us, and they match well with what we know of him from his recognised writings. All the universities had less experience than he, and the very down on his neck was more learned than all the authors. He likened himself to Hippocrates, the one ancient whom he esteemed. He contrasted himself with the doctors in white gloves who feared to soil their fingers in the laboratory. “Follow me,” he cried; “not I you, Avicenna, Galen, Rhazes, Montagnana, Mesuë, and ye others. Ye of Paris, of Montpellier, of Swabia, of Cologne, of Vienna; from the banks of the Danube, of the Rhine, from the islands of the seas, from Italy, Dalmatia, Sarmatia, and Athens, Greeks, Arabs, Israelites. I shall be the monarch, and mine shall be the monarchy.” In his capacity as city physician he naturally created many enemies among his fellow practitioners. His friends said he cured the cases which they found hopeless; they said he only gave temporary relief at the best, and that his remedies often killed the patients. He fell foul, too, of the apothecaries. He denounced their drugs and their ignorance. The three years he spent in Basel must have been lively both for him and his opponents.