poisoning, and will prevent miscarriages in women. He considered it not so cordial as emeralds, but more so than silver. He also states that if put into the mouth of a newly-born babe it will prevent the devil from acquiring power over the child.
The Archidoxa Medicinæ of Paracelsus, his famous Elixir of Long Life, is believed to have been a compound of gold and corrosive sublimate. He recommended gold especially in diseases connected with the heart, the organ which the sun was supposed to rule. Among the earlier Paracelsians Angelo Sala wrote a treatise on gold, entitled "Chrysologia, seu Examen Auri Chymicum," Hamburg, 1622. Sachsens prepared a Tinctura Solis secundem secretiorem Paracelsi Mentem preparata. But Thurneyssen, who carried on his quackeries on the largest scale, did the most to push the gold business. His Magistery of the Sun attained to great popularity in Germany, and these and his other preparations, together with the astrological almanacks and talismans which he sold, enabled him to live in great splendour at Frankfort, where he is said to have employed 200 persons in his laboratory. His fame departed, however, and he died in poverty at Cologne, in 1595.
Aurum Potabile.
Roger Bacon is said to have held that potable gold was the true elixir of life. He told Pope Nicholas IV that an old man in Sicily, ploughing, found one day a golden phial containing a yellow liquid. He thought it was dew, drank in off, and was immediately transformed into a hale, robust, handsome, and highly accomplished youth. He entered into the service of the King of Sicily, and remained at court for the next eighty years.
