Chronicles of Pharmacy, Vol. 1 (of 2)Wootton, A. C.
History
Chronicles of Pharmacy, Vol. 1 (of 2)
Wootton, A. C.
Pharmacy -- History
“In the beginning,” he says, “I threw myself with fervent zeal on the
teachers. But when I saw that nothing resulted from their practice
but killing, laming, and distorting; that they deemed most complaints
incurable; and that they administered scarcely anything but syrups,
laxatives, purgatives, and oatmeal gruel, with everlasting clysters, I
determined to abandon such a miserable art and seek truth elsewhere.”
Again he says: “The apothecaries are my enemies because I will not
empty their boxes. My recipes are simple and do not call for forty
or fifty ingredients. I seek to cure the sick, not to enrich the
apothecaries.”
His career at Basel was brought to a close by a dispute with a
prebendary of the cathedral named Lichtenfels, whom he had treated.
The canon, in pain, had promised him 200 florins if he would cure him.
The cure was not disputed, but as Paracelsus had only given him a few
little pills, the clergyman relied on the legal tariff. Paracelsus
sued him, and the court awarded the legal fee, which was six florins.
The doctor published his comments on the case, and it can readily be
supposed that they were of such a character as to amount to contempt of
court. He found it advisable to leave Basel hurriedly.
Between 1528 and 1535 he lived and practised at Colmar, Esslingen,
Nuremberg, Noerdlingen, Munich, Regensburg, Amberg, Meran, St. Gall,
and Zurich. From Switzerland he again set forth, and records of him are
to be traced in Carinthia and Hungary. Lastly, the Prince Palatine,
Duke Ernst of Bavaria, took him under his protection, and settled him
at Salzburg. There a few months afterwards he died. From dissipation
and exhaustion, say his enemies; by assassination, say his friends. A
German surgeon who examined his skull when the body was exhumed thirty
years after death, found in it a fracture of the temporal bone, which,
he declared, could only have been produced during life, because the
bones of a solid but desiccated skull could not have separated as
was the case here. It was suggested that some hirelings of the local
doctors whose prospects were endangered by this formidable invader had
“accidentally” pushed him down some rocks, and that it was then that
the fracture was caused. A monument to this great medical revolutionist
is still to be seen by the chapel of St. Philip Neri, at Salzburg. It
is a broken pyramid of white marble, with a cavity in which is his
portrait, and a Latin inscription which commemorates his cures of
diseases, and his generosity to the poor in the following terms:--
“Conditur hic Philippus Theophrastus, insignis Medicinæ
Doctor, qui dira illa vulnera, lepram, podagram, hydroposim,
aliaque insanabilia contagia mirificu arte sustulit; ac bona
sua in pauperes distribuenda collocandaque honoravit. Anno
1541, die 24 Septembr. vitam cum morte mutavit.”
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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