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after he had returned to Switzerland, he received, through the aid of certain influential citizens, two important official positions in Basel,—that of City Physician and that of Professor of Medicine and Surgery in the University. To the surprise of all, and contrary to long-established custom, he delivered his lectures in German and not in Latin. This action on his part called forth bitter criticism from the university authorities, but at first it met with the approval of the students. During the following two years, however, he gradually became unpopular with all classes of the community, and was finally obliged to leave Basel. Haeser attributes this unpopularity to Paracelsus' rough manners, to his intolerance of the opinions of his colleagues, and to his tirades against the apothecaries for their excessive charges. It is very difficult to determine how far jealousy was responsible for the state of affairs which I have just described. Cabanès, the author of an admirable biography of Paracelsus (Revue Scientifique, Paris, May 19, 1894), gives his own estimate of this remarkable man's character in the following terms: "Poor, miserable, and persecuted during his lifetime, he was misunderstood even after his death, and was calumniated by history." Paracelsus evidently believed it to be his bounden duty to destroy the then prevailing cult of Aristotle, Galen and Avicenna as the great teachers in medicine; and, filled with this idea, he prophesied the growth of a new science of medicine on the ruins of their teachings. It is stated that the students, after one of these excited lectures, made a bonfire and burned a number of copies of the works of these famous authors, thus showing that Paracelsus was sufficiently eloquent to infuse some of his own reforming spirit into the minds of his auditors. He made a great mistake, however, when he attacked in a similarly violent manner the shortcomings of many of his contemporaries. "The medical profession," he said, "has become a mere money-making business." As a natural result of such tirades, Paracelsus was forced to leave Basel. He fled first to Colmar in Alsace and at a later date took refuge in St. Gall, Switzerland; and it was while he resided in that city that