It is hardly necessary to state that a preparation of such potency is capable of effecting anything or everything; and accordingly, as time went on, other attributes than that of transmutation came to be associated with it. It may be, as Boerhaave surmises, that the idea of a universal medicine had its origin in a too literal interpretation of Geber’s allegory of the six lepers. Be this as it may, during the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries the philosopher’s stone was gravely prescribed as a means of preserving health and prolonging life. In case of illness one grain was directed to be dissolved in a sufficient quantity of good white wine, contained in a silver vessel, the draught to be taken after midnight. Recovery would follow after an interval depending upon the severity and age of the complaint. To keep in good health, the dose was to be repeated at the beginning of spring and autumn. “By this means,” says Daniel Zacharias, “one may enjoy perfect health until the end of the days assigned to one.” Isaac of Holland and Basil Valentine are equally explicit, but in their case it is recommended that the dose should be taken once a month: thus life would be prolonged “until the supreme hour fixed by the king of heaven.” Other alchemists were not always so prudent in prophecy. Artephius gave the limit of human life thus prolonged as a thousand years; Gualdo, a Rosicrucian, was stated to have lived four hundred years. Raymond Lully and Salomon Trismosin, we are told, renewed their youth by means of it. The advanced age at which Noah begat children could only be due, says Vincent de Beauvais, to his use of the philosopher’s stone. Dickinson wrote a learned book to prove that the great age of the patriarchs was owing to the same secret. But not only were health and length of days the fortunate lot of him who possessed the philosopher’s stone; increase of wisdom and virtue equally followed from its use. As it ennobled metals, so it freed the heart from evil. It made men as wise as Aristotle or Avicenna, sweetened adversity, banished vain-glory, ambition, and vicious desires. Adam received it at the hands of God, and it was given also to Solomon, although the commentators were rather exercised to know why, as he possessed the philosopher’s stone, he should have sent to Ophir for gold.