strange that numbers of people are said to have flocked to Hveen to obtain them.[1] In the official Danish Pharmacopœa of 1658 several of Tycho's elixirs are given, and in 1599 he provided the Emperor Rudolph with one against epidemic diseases, of which the principal ingredient was theriaca Andromachi, or Venice treacle, mixed with spirits of wine, and submitted to a variety of chemical operations and admixtures with sulphur, aloes, myrrh, saffron, &c. This medicine he considered more valuable than gold, and if the Emperor should wish to improve it still more, he might add a single scruple of either tincture of coral or of sapphire, of garnet, or of dissolved pearls, or of liquid gold if free from corrosive matter. If combined with antimony, this elixir would cure all diseases which can be cured by perspiration, and which form a third part of those which afflict the human body.[2] This prescription Tycho begged the Emperor to keep as a great secret, and he had evidently as much confidence in the powers of his elixir as the ingenious Hidalgo of La Mancha had in the efficacy of his celebrated balsam.
We can form some slight idea as to the principles which guided Tycho in his medical practice from a remark in one of his letters to Rothmann, where he speaks of the Aurora Borealis. This he takes to be sulphurous vapour, indicating that the air is apt to engender infectious diseases, "for such illness has a good deal in common with the nature of sulphur, and it can therefore be cured by perfectly pure earthly sulphur, particularly if this is made into a pleasant fluid, as like cures like (tanquam simile suo simili), for the
- ↑ Tycho seems to have had an apothecary in his service, as Paulus Pharmacopola is often alluded to in the diary; e.g., 22nd July 1596: "Elisabetha, filia Pauli pharmacopolæ, Joachimus et Theodoricus propter seditionem dimittuntur."
- ↑ The prescription is printed by Gassendi, p. 242 et seq.; he had it from Worm, who in 1653 informed Gassendi that the elixir was still much used in Denmark, frequently by the writer himself, who found it to be most powerful in causing perspiration (Opera, vi. p. 526).
