At almost the same epoch, Paracelsus, Professor at Basle, claimed that he possessed the universal panacea; that he had found the secret of prolonging life, by magic and astrology, for he diagnosed diseases through the influence of the stars. After him, Van Helmont defended animal magnetism, and gave himself up to the study of occult science, in company with his student, Rodolphe Goclenius. In the sixteenth century, Fernel, who, inasmuch as he was a mathematician and an astronomer, published his _Cosmotheria_, where he indicated the means of measuring a meridian degree with exactitude; his remarkable works on physiology (_De naturali parte medicinæ_, 1542), on pathology and therapeutics, which gave him the nickname of the French Galen. Fernel fully admitted the action of evil spirits on the body of man; he believed that adorers of the Demons could, by the aid of imprecations, enchantments, invocations and talismans, draw fallen angels into the bodies of their enemies, and that these Demons could then cause serious sickness. He compared the _possessed_ to maniacs, but that the former had the gift of reading the past and divining the most secret matters. He affirmed that he had been witness of a case of delirium caused by the presence of the Devil in a patient, that which was denied by several doctors at the epoch.[61] He also believed in lycanthropy.... In the same century, another of our medical glories, Ambroise Pare, the Father of French surgery, also adopted the theory of the Inquisitors regarding sorcery in his works,[62] in which may be found his remarkable anatomical and surgical discoveries. We read the following quaintly conceived passage: “Demons can suddenly change themselves into any form they wish; one often sees them transformed into serpents, frogs, bats, crows, goats, mules, dogs, cats, wolves, and bulls; they can be transmuted into men as well as into angels of light; they howl in the night and make infernal noises as though dragging chains, _they move chairs and tables_, rock cradles, turn the leaves of books, count money, throw down buckets, etc., etc. They are known by many names, such as cacodemons, incubi, succubi, coquemares, witches, hobgoblins, goblins, bad angels, Satan, Lucifer, etc. “The actions of Satan are supernatural and incomprehensible, passing human understanding, and we can no more understand them than we can comprehend why the loadstone attracts the needle. Those who are possessed by demons can speak with the tongue drawn out of their mouth, through the belly and by other natural parts; they speak unknown languages, cause earthquakes, make thunder, clear up the weather, drag up trees by the roots, move a mountain from one place to another, raise castles in the air and put them back in their places without injury, and can fascinate and dazzle the human eye.