Page:Chronicles of pharmacy (Volume 1).djvu/266

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as well as then.) They recognised, however, that "Paracelsus, whose supercilious ignorance merits our scorn and indignation," did use the term in the sense of a secret remedy.

The Pharmacy of Paracelsus is so frequently referred to in other sections of this book that it is not necessary to deal with it here at greater length. It is evident, however, that some of the formulas he devised, some of the names he coined, and some of the theories he advanced have entered into our daily practice; and even the dogmas now obsolete which are sometimes quoted to show how superior is our knowledge to his, served to quicken thought and speculation.


Portraits of Paracelsus.

The portraits of Paracelsus to be found in old books, as well as some celebrated paintings, are curiously various as likenesses. The oldest and by far the most frequent representation of him on title pages of his works is more or less similar to the portrait marked A, p. 247. This particular drawing was copied from one in the print room of the British Museum. Portrait B is copied from a painting attributed to Rubens which was for a long time in the Duke of Marlborough's collection at Blenheim. It was sold publicly in 1886 in London for £125 and is now in the "Collection Kums" at Antwerp. There is a similar painting, believed to be a copy of this one, in the Bodleian Library at Oxford.

In the year 1875, at an exhibition of historical paintings held at Nancy (France), a painting "attributed to Albert Dürer," and bearing his name in a cartouche, was exhibited and described as "Portrait presumé de Paracelse." It was not a copy but was unmistakably the same person as the one shown in the painting of Rubens. It came from a private collection and was sold to a local dealer for 2,000 francs, and afterwards disposed of to an unknown stranger for 3,000 francs. It has not been traced since. Dürer died in 1528 (thirteen years before the date of the death of Paracelsus). There is no mention of this likeness in any of his letters. It may have been the work of one of his pupils.

The third portrait (C) which is unlike either of the others professes to have been painted from life ("Tintoretto ad vivum pinxit") by Jacope Robusti, more commonly known as Tintoretto. The original has not been found, and the earliest print from it was a copper-plate engraving in a collection issued by Bitiskius of Geneva in 1658. The picture here given is a reduced copy of that engraving from a phototype made by Messrs. Angerer and Göschl, of Vienna, and published in a valuable work by the late Dr. Carl Aberle in 1890 entitled "Grabdenkmal, Schadel, und Abbildungen des Theophrastus Paracelsus." The publisher