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The first systematic teaching about the four elementary constituents of nature, as they were experienced by man of old, was given by Empedocles in the fifth century B.C. It was elaborated by Aristotle. In this form it was handed down and served to guide natural observation through more than a thousand years up to the time of van Helmont.
Later, however, it turned out that, because of the nature of the illness, he should have touched the stone with his tongue, to take its virtue internally, rather than merely anointing the skin with oil into which the stone had been dipped. Van Helmont makes it very clear that this is not magic or sorcery; there is no diabolic influence, no necromancy.
On the origin and superstitious influence of rings. Celestial influences omens climacterics predominations. Lucky and unlucky days. Empirics, etc. Absurdities of Paracelsus, and Van Helmont. Modern empiricism. The Rosicrucians or Theosophists.
Even so two liquids sometimes produce a solid, witness the spirit of wine and spirit of urine mixed by Van Helmont; or so do two cold and dark bodies produce a great fire, witness an acid solution and an aromatic oil combined by Herr Hoffmann.
Vitriol is the basic substance, and for purification of the virtue we require a "sequestration of its Venus from the dregs of the vitriol." This was the background from which Boyle set about to secure a potent remedy. Van Helmont had discussed his experiments whereby he tried to create a medicine which would have the virtues of Butler's stone. Boyle attempted to improve on van Helmont's technique.
I then believed, with Van Helmont, that the principle of life is a gas, and that the secret was but in the mode by which the gas might be rightly administered. But now, all that I need is contained in this coffer, save one very simple material fuel sufficient for a steady fire for six hours. I see even that is at hand, piled up in your outhouse.
Van Helmont considered the action to be that of a ferment, where an extremely minute quantity can produce a tremendous effect. He gives the analogy of the tooth of a mad dog, which, although any saliva has been carefully wiped off, can nevertheless sometimes induce madness. The effect of the stone seems to be comparable.
Such also Alexander the Great, said to have been the son of Olympias and a serpent; Scipio Africanus, Aristomenes of Messina, Julius Caesar, Porphyry, the Emperor Julian, who re-established the oath of fire abolished by Constantine the Apostate, Merlin the enchanter, child of a Sylph and a nun daughter of Charlemagne; Saint Thomas Aquinas, Paracelsus and, but recently, M. Van Helmont."
It worked, he declared, through the sweat and, to some extent, the urine. It is noteworthy that Boyle did not claim to have cured the same illnesses than van Helmont reports as having been cured by Butler's stone. As another example, he gave directions for preparing essence of hartshorn prepared, literally, from the horn itself.
The profession was literally ravaged by theories, schools and systems iatromechanics, iatrochemistry, humoralism, the animism of Stahl, the vitalistic doctrines of Van Helmont and his followers and into this metaphysical confusion Morgagni came like an old Greek with his clear observation, sensible thinking and ripe scholarship.
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