Basil Valentine writes with almost as much virulence against the physicians of his time, as Paracelsus himself did afterwards. As no particulars of his life have been handed down to posterity, I shall satisfy myself with giving a catalogue of his writings, and then pointing out the most striking chemical substances with which he was acquainted.
The books which have appeared under the name of Basil Valentine, are very numerous; but how many of them were really written by him, and how many are supposititious, is extremely doubtful. The following are the principal:
2. Tractat von naturlichen und ubernaturlichen Dingen; auch von der ersten tinctur, Wurzel und Geiste der Metallen.
4. Vier tractatlein vom stein der Weisen.
5. Kurzer anhang und klare repetition oder Wiederholunge vom grosen stein der Uhralten.
6. De prima Materia Lapidis Philosophici.
7. Azoth Philosophorum seu Aureliæ occultæ de Materia Lapidis Philosophorum.
11. Opus præclarum ad utrumque, quod pro Testamento dedit Filio suo adoptivo.
14. Von der grosen Heimlichkeit der Welt und ihrer Arzney.
15. Von der Wissenschaft der sieben Planeten.
16. Offenbahrung der verborgenen Handgriffe.
18. Dialogus Fratris Alberti cum Spiritu.
19. De Sulphure et fermento Philosophorum.
The only one of these works that I have read with care, is Kerkringius’s translation and commentary on the Currus triumphalis Antimonii. It is an excellent book, written with clearness and precision, and contains every thing respecting antimony that was known before the commencement of the 19th century. How much of this is owing to Kerkringius I cannot say, as I have never had an opportunity of seeing a copy of the original German work of Basil Valentine.
Basil Valentine, like Isaac Hollandus, was of opinion that the metals are compounds of salt, sulphur, and mercury. The philosopher’s stone was composed of the same ingredients. He affirmed, that there exists a great similarity between the mode of purifying gold and curing the diseases of men, and that antimony answers best for both. He was acquainted with arsenic, knew many of its properties, and mentions the red compound which it forms with sulphur. Zinc seems to have been known to him, and he mentions bismuth, both under its own name, and under that of _marcasite_. He was aware that manganese was employed to render glass colourless. He mentions nitrate of mercury, alludes to corrosive sublimate, and seems to have known the red oxide of mercury. It would be needless to specify the preparations of antimony with which he was acquainted; scarcely one was unknown to him which, even at present, exists in the European Pharmacopœias. Many of the preparations of lead were also familiar to him. He was aware that lead gives a sweet taste to vinegar. He knew sugar of lead, litharge, yellow oxide of lead, white carbonate of lead; and mentions that this last preparation was often adulterated in his time. He knew the method of making green vitriol, and the double chloride of iron and ammonia. He was aware that iron could be precipitated from its solution by potash, and that iron has the property of throwing down copper. He was aware that tin sometimes contains iron, and ascribed the brittleness of Hungarian iron to copper. He knew that oxides of copper gave a green colour to glass; that Hungarian silver contained gold; that gold is precipitated from aqua regia by mercury, in the state of an amalgam. He mentions fulminating gold. But the important facts contained in his works are so numerous, while we are so uncertain about the genuineness of the writings themselves, that it will scarcely be worth while to proceed further with the catalogue.
