immediately fixed the attention of
Europe. Their great obscurity was no impediment to their fame; for the
less the author was understood, the more the demonologists, fanatics, and
philosopher's-stone hunters seemed to appreciate him. His fame as a
physician kept pace with that which he enjoyed as an alchymist, owing to
his having effected some happy cures by means of mercury and opium,--drugs
unceremoniously condemned by his professional brethren. In the year 1526,
he was chosen professor of physics and natural philosophy in the
University of Basle, where his lectures attracted vast numbers of
students. He denounced the writings of all former physicians as tending to
mislead; and publicly burned the works of Galen and Avicenna, as quacks
and impostors. He exclaimed, in presence of the admiring and
half-bewildered crowd, who assembled to witness the ceremony, that there
was more knowledge in his shoe-strings than in the writings of these
physicians. Continuing in the same strain, he said, all the Universities
in the world were full of ignorant quacks; but that he, Paracelsus,
overflowed with wisdom. "You will all follow my new system," said he, with
furious gesticulations, "Avicenna, Galen, Rhazis, Montagnana, Meme,--you
will all follow me, ye professors of Paris, Montpellier, Germany, Cologne,
and Vienna! and all ye that dwell on the Rhine and the Danube,--ye that
inhabit the isles of the sea; and ye also, Italians, Dalmatians,
Athenians, Arabians, Jews,--ye will all follow my doctrines, for I am the
monarch of medicine!"

[Illustration: PARACELSUS.]

But he did not long enjoy the esteem of the good citizens of Basle. It is
said that he indulged in wine so freely, as not unfrequently to be seen in
the streets in a state of intoxication. This was ruinous for a physician,
and his good fame decreased rapidly. His ill fame increased in still
greater proportion, especially when he assumed the airs of a sorcerer. He
boasted of the legions of spirits at his command; and of one especially,
which he kept imprisoned in the hilt of his sword. Wetteras, who lived
twenty-seven months in his service, relates that he often threatened to
invoke a whole army of demons, and shew him the great authority which he
could exercise over them. He let it be believed that the spirit in his
sword had custody of the elixir of life, by means of which he could make
any one live to be as old as the antediluvians. He also boasted that he
had a spirit