One of the most illustrious of the adept philosophers is unquestionably Basilius Valentinus, born at Mayence, and made prior of St Peter’s at Erfurt in 1414. His name was supposed to be fictitious and adopted for the purpose of concealing some accomplished artist, but the history of the city of Erfurt, published by J. M. Gudemus assures us of the existence and name of the philosopher, on the authority of the public records, and shows us that in 1413 he was an inmate of the monastic house already mentioned, and that he distinguished himself by a profound knowledge of nature.[S] As the work of Gudemus was printed in 1675, the veracity of the _Dictionnaire des Sciences Occultes_, written in the interests of religion and for the blackening of the secret sciences, may be judged by the following passage:--“His life is so mixed up with fables that some have disbelieved in his existence. He is represented flourishing in the twelfth, thirteenth, fourteenth, and fifteenth centuries; it is even added, _without the smallest proof_, that he was a benedictine at Erfurt.” According to Olaus Borrichius, he enclosed his writings in one of the pillars of the abbey church; they remained for many years in this hiding-place, but were at length discovered by the fortunate violence of a thunderbolt. He was the first who introduced antimony into medicine, and it is said that he originally tried the effects of antimonial medicines upon the monks of his convent, upon whom they acted with such undue violence “that he was induced to distinguish the mineral from which these medicines had been extracted by the name of _antimoine_--hostile to monks.” But Thomson, who relates this anecdote in his “History of Chemistry,” shows the improbability of it, for the works of Basil Valentine, and in particular his _Currus Triumphalis Antimonii_, were written in the German language. Now the German name for antimony is _speissglas_ and not antimoine, which is French. Basil Valentine denounces the physicians of his time with the fury of Paracelsus. The most ancient systems of chemical philosophy are preserved in his experiments. He exalts antimony as an excellent medicine for those who are acquainted with alchemical secrets. To others it is a poison of the most powerful nature.