Philippus Aureolus Theophrastus Paracelsus Bombast ab Hohenheim (as he denominates himself) was born at Einsideln, two German miles from Zurich. His father was called William Bombast von Hohenheim. He was a very near relation of George Bombast von Hohenheim, who became afterwards grand master of the order of Johannites. William Bombast von Hohenheim practised medicine at Einsideln.[143] After receiving the first rudiments of his education in his native city, he became a wandering scholastic, as was then the custom with poor scholars. He wandered from province to province, predicting the future by the position of the stars, and the lines on the hand, and exhibiting all the chemical processes which he had learned from founders and alchymists. For his initiation in alchymy, astrology, and medicine, he was indebted to his father, who was much devoted to these three sciences. Paracelsus mentions also the names of several ecclesiastics from whom he received chemical information; among others, Tritheimius, abbot of Spanheim; Bishop Scheit, of Stettbach; Bishop Erhart, of Laventall; Bishop Nicolas, of Hippon; and Bishop Matthew Schacht. He seems also to have served some years as an army surgeon, for he mentions many cures which he performed in the Low Countries, in the States of the Church, in the kingdom of Naples, and during the wars against the Venetians, the Danes, and the Dutch. [143] See Testamentum Paracelsi, passim. There is some uncertainty whether he received a regular college education, as was then the practice with all medical men. He acknowledges himself that his medical antagonists reproached him with never having frequented their schools; and he is perpetually affirming, that a physician should receive all his knowledge from God, and not from man. But if we can trust his own assertions, there can be no doubt that he took a regular medical degree, which implies a regular college education. He tells us, in his preface to his Chirurgia Magna, that he visited the universities of Germany, France, and Italy. He assures his readers, that he was the ornament of the schools where he studied. He even speaks of the oath which he was obliged to take when he received his medical degree; but where he studied, or where and when he received his medical degree, are questions which neither Paracelsus nor his disciples, nor his biographers, have enabled us to solve. If he ever attended a university, he must have neglected his studies, otherwise he could not have been ignorant, as he confessedly was, of the very first elements of the most common kinds of knowledge. But if he neglected the universities, he laboured long and assiduously with the rich Sigismond Fuggerus, of Schwartz, in order to learn the true secret of forming the philosopher’s stone.