Paracelsus received the first rudiments of education from his father, and, as he advanced in his studies and capacity, he was instructed in alchemy, surgery, and medicine. One of the works of Isaac Holland fell into his hands, and from that moment he was inflamed with the ambition of curing diseases by medicine superior to the _materia_ at that time in use. He performed several chemical operations, according to the books of the celebrated Hollander, and adopted from his writings the ancient principles that a salt, mercury, and sulphur form a trinity in every substance. This system he enlarged and explained by his own intellectual illumination. He imbibed much of his father’s extensive learning, and then continued his studies under the guidance of monks in the convent of St Andrew of Savon, afterwards at the University of Basel, and finally devoted himself to the occult sciences with the illustrious Johann Trithemius, Abbot of Spanheim, for his teacher and director. In this way he acquired “the Kabbalah of the spiritual, astral, and material worlds.” He was afterwards placed under the care of Sigismond Hagger or Fagger, to be improved in medicine, surgery, and chemistry. At twenty years of age he started on his travels through Germany, Hungary, Italy, France, the Netherlands, Denmark, Sweden, and Russia. In Muscovy he is said to have been taken prisoner by the Tartars, who brought him before “the great Cham.” His knowledge of medicine and chemistry made him a favourite at the court of this potentate, who sent him in company with his son on an embassy to Constantinople. It was here, according to Helmont, that he was taught the supreme secret of alchemistry by a generous Arabian, who gave him the universal dissolvent, the Azoth of western adepts, the alcahest or sophic fire. Thus initiated, he is said to have proceeded to India. On his return to Europe he passed along the Danube into Italy, where he served as an army surgeon, performing many wonderful cures.