"Bumbastus kept a devil's bird Shut in the pummel of his sword, That taught him all the cunning pranks Of past and future mountebanks." (HUDIBRAS, Part II., Cant. 3.)
Naudæus (in his "History of Magic") observes of this familiar spirit, "that though the alchymists maintain that it was the secret of the philosopher's stone, yet it were more rational to believe that, if there was anything in it, it was certainly two or three doses of his laudanum, which he never went without, because he did strange things with it, and used it as a medicine to cure almost all diseases." "_Sudary of the Virgin_": a handkerchief, a relic of the Blessed Virgin Mary. _Suffumigation_, a medical fumigation, such as was used by Hippocrates. _Erasmus_ was born at Rotterdam in 1466. The home of his old age was Basel, to which place he was attracted by the fame of the printing press of Frobenius. Here he made the acquaintance of Zwingle and Holbein, and other men full of the desire for learning. "_Ape at the bed's foot_": patients who suffer from delirium frequently see apes, rats, cats, and other animals and figures, mocking them at the foot of the bed. "_Spain's cork-groves_": cork is the bark of the cork-oak (_Quercus suber_). It grows in Spain, and is most abundant in Catalonia and Valencia. "_Præclare! Optime!_" == Bravo! well done! "_I precede my age_": it has only recently been discovered how much our modern science owes to the labours and researches of Paracelsus. _Aëtius_ was an Arian doctor, who was very skilful in medical disputation. He died at Constantinople in 367. _Oribasius_ was the court physician of Julian the Apostate (326-403). _Galen_ was a great anatomist and a physiological physician. _Rhasis_ (see note, p. 324). _Serapion_, an Alexandrian physician, "a great name in antiquity." _Avicenna_, an Arabian philosopher and physician, born about A.D. 980, who presented to his countrymen the doctrines of Galen blended with those of Aristotle. _Averröes_, an Arabian philosopher and physician, born at Cordova in 1126, the interpreter of the Aristotelian philosophy to the Mohammedans. _Zuinglius_ == Zwingle the Reformer, of Zurich. _Carolstadius_, or _Carlstadt_, one of the first Reformers. He was professor of divinity at Wittemberg, and early joined Luther in the new religion. He became the leader of the fanatical sect of iconoclasts at Wittemberg, and excited them to excesses. He was banished, and died at Basle in 1541. _Suabia_, the name of an ancient duchy in the south-west part of Germany. _Oporinus_: lived two years in close intimacy with Paracelsus as his secretary, and has been suspected of defaming his memory. "_Sic itur ad astra_": such is the way to immortality. _Liechtenfels_, a canon who was cured by Paracelsus when he was in danger of death, and refused afterwards to pay the stipulated fee.