Albert de Ballstatt, issue of a noble family of Swabia, monk of the order of St. Dominicus, after studying in the principal schools of Italy and Germany, arrived at Paris in 1222 A.D., and soon had numerous auditors, among whom may be mentioned Saint Augustin, Roger Bacon, Villeneuve, and other distinguished men. His lectures attracted such crowds of students from the University that he was obliged to speak from a public place in the Latin Quarter, which, in commemoration of his success, was called _Place Maitre Albert_, afterwards corrupted to Place Maubert. His writings were encyclopedic, their principal merit being commentaries on the works of Aristotle, of whom but little was known at that period; he studied also the Latin translations of the Arabian school, and reviewed Avicenna and Averrhoes, adding to such works some original observations. Albert the Great, or Albertus Magnus, the name posterity has bestowed on this genius, was also much occupied with alchemy, and passed for a magician. He was considered a sorcerer by many, as he was said to evoke the spirits of the departed, and produced wonderful phenomena. Albert’s works on natural history, his botany and mineralogy are, in reality, taken from the works of Aristotle, as well as his _parva naturalis_, which is only a reproduction of the _Organon_ of the Greek philosopher; nevertheless, Albert deserves credit for his good work in relighting the torch of science in the Occident. His disciple, Roger Bacon, was also a monk; he studied in Paris and afterwards removed to Oxford, England, where he actively devoted himself to natural science, especially physics. He left behind him remarkable observations on the refraction of light; explanation of the formation of rainbows, inventing the magnifying glass and telescope. His investigations in alchemy led him to discover a combustible body similar to phosphorus, while his work on “Old Age” (_De retardtandus senectutis occidentibus_) entitled him to a high position among the physicians of the thirteenth century. Although one of the founders of experimental science, one of the initiators—if the expression may be used—of scientific positivism, he also devoted much time to astrology. Denounced as a magician and sorcerer by his own _confreres_ in religion, he was condemned to perpetual imprisonment, and was only released a few years before his death, leaving many writings on almost every branch of science. It was more than a century after these two great men died that medical science commenced its upward flight.