Volume 2 / Book 5 — CHAPTER LXV

EXPERIMENTS AND SECRETS OF GALEN, RASIS, AND OTHERS

II. CHEMICAL AND MAGICAL

The Liber Vaccae—Its other titles—Its two prologues—Experiments in magic generation and rain-making—More magic with animals—Other marvelous experiments—Plato as an alchemist—Galen as an alchemist—Eighty-eight Natural Experiments of Rasis—Liber ignium of Marcus Grecus—Further experiments—Secretum philosophorum—Experiments connected with writing—Riddles: a trick with a knife—Deceiving the senses—Tricks of jugglers—Mathematical problems—Astronomy: experiments with air: the magnet—Le Secret aux Philosophes—Natural Experiments of Solomon—Experiments without author or title—Twelve experiments with snakeskin of John Paulinus—Marvelous virtues of snakeskin—Other treatises concerning the virtues of snakes—Chemical experiments of Nicholas—Books of waters—Colors—Necromantic experiments—Experimentum in dubiis—A natural experiment—Variety of experiments in medieval manuscripts—An experimental manuscript—Experimental character of the Sloane MSS—Some seventeenth century experiments—More recipes and experiments—Magic experiments—Appendix I. Manuscripts of the Liber Vaccae—Appendix II. Manuscripts of the Secretum Philosophorum.

The Liber Vaccae.

Of the books of experiments of a chemical or magical character which we have to consider in this chapter the earliest, as far as our available information goes, is the Liber Vaccae, with which the name of Galen is associated and which is primarily a collection of magical and necromantic experiments. The original author, however, was the philosopher Plato whose work, according to a long, rambling, and confused prefatory statement, Galen had revised and abbreviated. Steinschneider held that our treatise was cited under the title Liber de prophetiis by Pedro Alfonso in the Disciplina clericalis at the close of the eleventh century,[2442] but perhaps Pedro knew it in Arabic or Hebrew[2443] rather than Latin translation. The manuscripts of the Latin translation, however, go back to the thirteenth, if not to the twelfth century,[2444] while for most of the other treatises to be considered in this chapter the oldest extant manuscripts seem to be of the fourteenth century. Moreover, William of Auvergne refers to our treatise in his work written in the first half of the thirteenth century.

Its other titles.

The work has many other alternative titles besides Liber Vaccae, which seems to be suggested by its first experiment which is concerned with a cow, and Liber de prophetiis, which I do not remember to have seen in any Latin manuscript. Another common title is Liber Anguemis or Anequems or Anegnems or Anagnenis,[2445] although the preface explains that the treatise was not called the Liber Anguemis in the first place. The manuscripts also call it The Book of Active Institutes and The Book of Aggregations of Divers Philosophers. William of Auvergne spoke with disapproval of our treatise as a book of mixtures employed in magic, which was ascribed to Plato and called Liber Neumich or Nevemich, or the Laws of Plato. “And,” adds William sarcastically, “it is called the Laws of Plato because it is contrary to the laws of nature.”[2446] Steinschneider has pointed out that in Arabic Nawamis means “laws” and that both Neumich and Anguemis are probably Latin corruptions of the Arabic word. And of course Laws and Institutes are practically the same thing. Pico della Mirandola, writing against astrology at the close of the fifteenth century, refers to our treatise by the two titles De vacca and Institutes, warning his readers that astrologers palm off their volumes as the writings of great authorities like Aristotle, “just as magicians carry about the books of Plato De vacca and what they call the Books of Institutes, stuffed with execrable dreams and figments.”[2447]

Its two prologues.

Honein ben Ishak again appears in connection with a supposititious work of Galen. The long and repetitious prefatory statement, to which we have already alluded, is professedly by him, and we are told what Honein said and what Galen said and what Honein says Galen said in great profusion. The Latin translator, however, not to mention subsequent copyists, has perhaps taken liberties with the wording of this preface and corrupted an original Arabic clarity. Who the Latin translator is we are not told, but in some manuscripts the prefatory statement to which we have thus far alluded is proceeded by an even longer prologue which opens with the pious wish, “May God confer noble morals upon you.” This is probably the same as a prologue by “Farachius” opening, “Friend, may God grant you noble morals,” which Steinschneider held belonged with the Medical experiments of Galen or Rasis.[2448] But our prologue seems to contain a direct allusion to the following Liber vaccae[2449] as well as to be generally appropriate to it. The name of the writer of this first prologue is not given in the manuscripts I have seen, but he refers to his books concerning animals and poisons and simple medicines, which last is also called the Book of Sustenance (liber sustentationis). He appears to have been criticized for his propensity toward marvels and occult virtues and his inconsistency in at the same time censuring vulgar suspensions, incantations, and cures. His defense of occult properties is the usual one that even if reason cannot account for them, they are supported both by the testimony of the ancients and by experience. As usual the property of the magnet is adduced; the Pseudo-Aristotle is cited “in his books on stones,” and the genuine Aristotle in the History of Animals concerning the narce’s power of stupefying. The remainder of the prologue consists chiefly of a series of citations from various authors which are largely duplicated in the De mirabilibus mundi ascribed to Albertus Magnus. This first prologue cannot be by Honein, since it cites not only Costa ben Luca but filius messie, that is, Yuhanna ibn Masawaih who died at Cairo in 1015, or some Latin writer of the eleventh or twelfth century who pretended to translate his works from the Arabic. Presumably therefore it is by the Latin translator of the Liber vaccae. This could not be Faradj ben Salem under Charles of Anjou if the translation was known to William of Auvergne early in the thirteenth century.

Experiments in magic generation and rainmaking.

The experiments of the Liber vaccae are hardly such as can be described in detail in English translation. Some of them are elaborate experiments in unseemly generation and obstetrics, having for their object “to make a rational animal” from a cow or ape or other beast,[2450] or “to make bees.”[2451] By a similar procedure a liniment is obtained which has such virtue that if one is anointed with it, one feels no pain from blows, while it blunts the edge of a sword with which one is struck. Or by suffumigations with it rain may be produced.[2452] A less unmentionable method of rain-making is that which is “famous among the wise” and which, the author says, some employ in his own time. First a black crow without a speck upon it is to be “submerged in water until it dies.” Then a very black dog is to be imprisoned in a dark house and given the crow to eat and the water in which it was drowned to drink on the third day. By the eleventh day, we are assured, only the whites of his eyes will show and he will be unable to bark. Then one takes a small tree called mephus with small leaves like rue and a flower like the bean, and gives the dog about an ounce of its juice, which will cause him to recover his voice and bark mightily. He should then be bound “hand and foot” (manus et pedes) and boiled in a big pot. The broth thus obtained is to be used to bring rain.[2453] Other procedures are described to stop a rainy spell and restore fine weather.[2454]

More magic with animals

In order to see spirits a white cock with a round crest which is concave in the middle is put in a place where neither the bark of a dog nor the voice of a crow is heard, whereby this experiment is sharply distinguished from the dog-and-crow procedure. For three successive days the cock is to be fed on the eyes of three fish of the species known as alliataiu, and the eyes must have been removed while the fish were living. On the third day the cock will swell up and become aggressive and his crest will grow inflamed. After three hours he is to be decapitated and fed to a wild cat, which is then to be beheaded in its turn. Its blood and gall are to be dried and from them a concoction is to be prepared which will enable one to see spirits.[2455] A frog figures as an ingredient in a mixture which, if one merely writes with it on parchment and throws the same into a den of snakes or vipers, will excoriate and kill them instantly.[2456] The congealed blood of an ass is a constituent of a suffumigation which enables one to learn what the future holds in store of good or evil.[2457] Indeed throughout the work parts of animals are the favorite substances employed, although stones and herbs are also used.

Other marvelous experiments.

The Liber Vaccae abounds in suffumigations, marvelous houses, golden or otherwise, and magic lamps and fires. One makes men appear in any form desired;[2458] another makes a house seem to be full of snakes;[2459] or a lamp is extinguished by opening the hands over it and is relighted by closing them.[2460] Such marvels we shall find frequently repeated in our following books of experiments. That of holding fire in the hand and not being burnt by it is here described as if quick-lime were used rather than alcohol.[2461] Other paragraphs tell how to plant seed and have it grow instantly,[2462] how to understand the language of the birds,[2463] how to answer questions about persons who are absent,[2464] how to sit under a tree and cause it to incline toward you.[2465] The last recipe calls for the teeth, nose, and bones of a dead man. But perhaps we have sufficiently illustrated the character of the Liber Vaccae. Its necromancy should have at least “provoked the silent dust” of Plato and of Galen.

Plato as an alchemist.

To Plato and Galen, though never apparently again in partnership, were also attributed various works of alchemy in the middle ages. Most widespread would seem to have been The Fourth Book or Four Books, which is found both in the manuscripts and in print. In an Oxford manuscript[2466] it opens by Thebit, presumably ben Corat, asking Hasam to “tell us briefly what you have learned of the revelation of things occult and expound the book of old Plato.” Thebit also introduces both of the other parts of the book in this manuscript, but for the most part Hames tells us what Plato said. This indirect form of presentation is somewhat similar to that of the Liber Vaccae, and there is also much talk of abbreviating even in the fuller and different printed version,[2467] which is divided into four books, but the contents are entirely alchemical and there is no mention of Galen. The work seems to be a translation from the Arabic and not a Latin forgery. Berthelot placed the Latin translation of the alchemical treatise of the Pseudo-Plato about 1200.[2468] But there are in the manuscripts yet other works of alchemy ascribed to Plato, one of which, The Thirteen Keys of Greater Wisdom, is said to have been translated from Arabic into Latin about 1301 A. D.[2469]

Galen as an alchemist

As for Galen, a Commentary of Galen upon Hermes’ Book of Secrets[2470] turns out to be an alchemy of the incoherent and mystical variety. A Practice in the Secrets of Secrets of Nature ascribed to him is obviously spurious, since it opens by citing Geber. It is accompanied by a Theorica.[2471] Indeed, the Practica is really the same as the treatise usually ascribed to Archelaus.[2472] There was perhaps a medieval alchemist named Galen, since a manuscript at Paris states that “Master Galienus the writer who is used in the episcopate is an alchemist and knows how to whiten eramen so that it is as white as ordinary silver.”[2473]

The Eighty-eight Natural Experiments of Rasis.

The Eighty-eight Natural Experiments of Rasis[2474] are not medical but a series of magic tricks and chemical experiments. Yet they are not only ascribed to Rasis, or at least are said to be a selection from a larger work of his recently translated from Arabic into Latin at Toledo,[2475] but the translator seems to be the same mysterious Ferrarius[2476] of the Experimental Medicines, while the opening words[2477] are very similar to those of the Secrets of Galen which Gerard of Cremona is supposed to have translated, except that here we read, “You have asked me, friend Anselm” instead of Monteus.[2478] Only fragments of the treatise seem to be extant but enough of the eighty-eight experiments are preserved to illustrate their character. Serpents are assembled at a given spot by placing a snake in a perforated pot about which a slow fire is built in order to make him hiss and attract his kind. Fish are made to congregate similarly beneath the surface of a river by letting down into the water at night a lighted lantern with glass windows in its four sides.[2479] The property of alcohol (aqua ardens) of burning on the tip of a finger or from a cloth which has been dipped in it without consuming the cloth or burning the finger is termed magical. To cook an egg in cold water, it is placed in quick-lime in a vessel, then cold water is poured in and the vessel tightly closed. Other experiments are to make a ring hop about the house like a locust, to carry live coals without injury, to light a candle from the rays of the sun, to blacken the face completely. More useful seem those experiments which consist in making alcohol, turpentine, or Greek fire.

Liber ignium of Marcus Grecus.

Following the three experiments just mentioned, in both the manuscripts of the Eighty-eight Natural Experiments which we have just been describing, comes The Book of Fires for Burning Enemies of Marcus Grecus.[2480] Since it is also found in other manuscripts,[2481] it would appear to be a distinct treatise from the Eighty-eight Natural Experiments, although its form is similar. Berthelot already has been impressed by the close association in this treatise of “purely scientific compounds of combustible or phosphorescent substances and the preparations of prestidigitateurs and magicians.”[2482] For instance, in an effort to make an inextinguishable fire glow-worms are pulverized and mixed with other substances and then warmed for a certain number of days in horse manure.[2483] A lamp that will shed a silvery light on everything in the house is obtained by smearing the wick with a liquid similar to quicksilver supposed to be obtained by cutting off a lizard’s tail.[2484] Or everything around will appear green, if the brain of a bird is wrapped in cloth and burned with olive oil on a green stone. If the hands are rubbed with an Indian nut or chestnut and “water of camphor,” a candle may be extinguished by opening them above it and relighted by closing the hands.[2485] Other ointments are said to keep one from being burned by a flame or by the red-hot iron in the ordeal.[2486] More scientific are the recipes for oil of sulphur, gunpowder, Greek fire, alcohol.[2487] Two of the more fantastic experiments are said to have been discovered by Aristotle for Alexander,[2488] and another cites Hermes and Ptolemy for its “prodigious and marvelous works.”[2489] The reader will have noticed the recurrence of some of the matters treated in the Natural Experiments of Rasis. Such repetitions and resemblances are common in the medieval collections of recipes and experiments.

Further experiments.

At the close of the Book of Fires of Marcus Grecus, in one of the two manuscripts[2490] where it follows the Eighty-eight Natural Experiments of Rasis, the listing of experiments of the same sort continues without any new title and the consecutive numbering of them in the margin goes on up to one hundred and forty-four in all. It is doubtful, however, how far we may regard these additional experiments as a resumption of the text of Rasis, which had been interrupted by the work of Marcus Grecus, since we cannot arrive at an even number of eighty-eight experiments by any combination. These additional experiments instruct us how to paint an image on the wall from which a candle may be lighted, how to write letters that cannot be read unless the material upon which they are written is placed near a fire or touched with a rod, how to make cooked meat seem raw and wormy.[2491] This trick, which is found frequently in medieval manuscripts, is performed by making mince meat of the heart or dried blood of some animal and strewing the particles upon the piece of cooked flesh, whose heat will make them move like worms, while their color is that of raw meat. We are also instructed how to cook meat of a sudden, how to turn a red rose white—apparently by fumigating it with sulphur, and how to make “marvelous bottles” (ad faciendum ampullas mirabiles)—the directions seem to tell how to blow soap bubbles.[2492] How to emit fire from the mouth, to heat a bath, to construct an artificial mill in a camp, and to make all the bystanders appear headless.[2493] A score of experiments are concerned with colors and dyes.[2494] To make a dog follow you, place a piece of bread and butter under your armpit, “that it may receive the odor of the sweat,” and then feed it to the dog.[2495] A magical experiment to deprive a man of his urine consists in taking urine and earth on which someone has made water and enclosing them together in the skin of a camel’s womb or a dog’s paw; “and he will have no urine as long as the earth is enclosed in the skin.”[2496] The last experiment, “that a wife may live a good life with her husband,” involves writing an incantation upon parchment.[2497]

The Secretum Philosophorum.

Found together with the Eighty-eight Natural Experiments of Rasis in one of the two manuscripts[2498] containing that work, and in other manuscripts together with the Liber ignium[2499] and Liber Vaccae[2500] and Experiments or Secrets of Albert,[2501] is an anonymous work entitled The Secret of the Philosophers. As it seems to be found especially in English libraries,[2502] and mainly in manuscripts of the fourteenth century,[2503] it was perhaps composed in England in the thirteenth century. At any rate it claims no connection with Galen or Rasis. It is longer than most medieval collections of experiments and subdivides into seven sections, each named after one of the liberal arts.

Experiments connected with writing.

Under the heading “Grammar” materials and instruments used in writing are first spoken of, then methods of writing, especially those employed by the wise to conceal their meaning, as when the alchemists use the names of planets to denote the seven chief metals. Instructions are given for making colors employed in illuminating, ink, white tablets, and glues. We are told again how to write letters which are invisible until touched with a rod or exposed to fire. Also how to write so that the writing can be read only in a mirror, how to erase writing without leaving any mark, how to engrave steel and other metals, and how to color the letters so engraved. A paragraph on the right way of speaking might seem to belong under the head of rhetoric rather than of grammar, but just precedes the section of rhetoric in such manuscripts as I have examined. It warns against much speaking, citing Aristotle’s advice to Alexander in the Secret of Secrets, and ends with the familiar couplet:

Riddles: a trick with a knife.

The section on “Rhetoric,” which is defined as speaking ornately, is devoted to riddles, verbal deceits, quibbles, and catches. Under one of its sub-heads, Of Weights, we are told how to balance a knife, although its center is to project beyond the edge of a table and although a weight is to be hung on this projecting end. “The way to fulfill the doctrine of this thing is to fix the blade of the knife in the end of a rod so that it makes an acute angle with the rod, and you will see how the rod will hang with the knife.”

Deceiving the senses.

“Dialectic” is concerned in our treatise not with logical fallacies but with deception of the senses by various tricks. To make water look and taste like wine, a bottle half full of water should be held or left inverted for a time over the orifice of a jar of wine. This procedure is recommended in cases where a patient wants to drink wine and the doctor knows that it would not be good for him. In order to determine whether a patient is really dead and to prevent cases of burial alive, it is recommended to hold a mirror to his nostrils and see if it will be clouded by a faint breath. This comes under the sub-head, De olfactus deceptione, breathing as well as the sense of smell evidently being included under the olfactory organs. The sense of hearing is deceived by an echo, and the sense of sight by mirrors which enlarge or multiply objects or make an image appear outside the mirror. The use of burning glasses is also discussed.

Tricks of jugglers.

Under the sub-head, “Sophistries called sleight-of-hand,” (De sophisticationibus que vocantur iugulationes), come the tricks or cautelae of the jugglers. An apple is made to move on a table by preparing a hole in the center beforehand and placing a beetle inside. To construct a cross that will seem to turn to right or left automatically in answer to questions put to it concerning hidden or future matters, one builds it up of wax about the tail of some insect or tiny animal[2505] which is also concealed in wax and irritated with sage[2506] so that it wiggles its tail and the cross. Hands that have been bound may be freed by cutting the rope against a prearranged knife. Again we meet the experiments to make cooked meat seem raw or full of worms and directions for blowing soap-bubbles, a process which is spoken of as “making a golden sphere appear flying in the air.” Other illusions under “Dialectic” are to seem on fire and not be burned, to see stars in the daytime by multiplying the reflections of the sun, to make a silver coin seem copper, and to deceive the sense of touch by such methods as holding an object between two crossed fingers.

Mathematical problems.

The headings, Arithmetic, Music, and Geometry, are more exactly appropriate to their contents than Dialectic was. One problem in arithmetic is to tell how many knights, esquires, and pages will be required to divide twenty loaves of bread, if each knight receives two loaves, if two pages share a loaf, and if four esquires share a loaf. Under geometry are calculated surfaces, the cubic contents of various receptacles, and the altitudes of inaccessible objects.

Astronomy: experiments with air: the magnet.

Under “Astronomy” the rule of superiors over inferiors is affirmed and the various attributes, properties, and effects of the planets are listed. Then come “experiments with air” and many figures of vessels partly filled with water or other liquids. Siphoning is explained under the heading, “Of the ascent of water on account of the consumption of the air lest a vacuum be left.” By employing the same principle that Adelard of Bath observed in the magic water-jar of the enchantress, any one of four different liquids that the spectators choose can be poured from a single faucet. Inside the jar are four compartments each with its own airhole above and outlet below, and beneath all four a common chamber into which they open and from which the common faucet pours. The four air-holes are covered with the fingers, and as one of these is raised, the liquid will flow from the corresponding compartment. This is illustrated by a diagram of the contrivance. The magnet is discussed under “Astronomy” “because it bears in itself a likeness of the sky.” This discussion of the magnet and some of the accompanying figures resemble the treatise of Peter Peregrinus on the magnet, which was written in the thirteenth century.[2507] Here the work ends in two of the three manuscripts which I have used,[2508] but in the third further experiments are added.[2509] Some of these have occurred before in the Secretum philosophorum itself, or in other experimental treatises of which we have already spoken. Others are to make fireworks,[2510] to soften steel, to drive away crows, and to tell whether a person is a leper.

Le Secret aux philosophes.

Not to be confused with the Latin Secretum philosophorum, which we have just described and which seems to be of English origin, is a work in the French vernacular written at the end of the thirteenth century and entitled Le Secret aux philosophes.[2511] It is not a collection of experiments but rather an encyclopedic discussion of theological and metaphysical as well as natural problems in the form of a dialogue, presumably imaginary, although sometimes represented as a translation, between Placides, the promising son of a petty king, and his master Timeo, who chose him as his pupil in preference to the stupid son of a great emperor. Through this medium is retailed for less learned perusal much of the knowledge and superstition, especially astrological, to be found in the Latin and Arabic learning of the time. Perhaps the resemblance is greater to the Secret of Secrets of the Pseudo-Aristotle than to any other treatise that we have considered. The author, very weak and meager on theological and metaphysical matters, shows a much greater interest in natural science and something of the spirit of experimental research. Yet in a prologue “the compiler” gives his name as Jehan de Bonnet, priest, doctor of theology, and native of Paris. Ernest Renan was impressed by the curiosity shown concerning problems of natural science, by the “search after realities” and by the experimental spirit of the book. The solutions, as in the Natural Questions of Adelard of Bath, often make one smile, but “this naïve composition ... is superior to many scholastic treatises in Latin which deal purely with abstractions and where modern thought has not its true antecedents.” In this treatise, on the other hand, “the science of reality has taken the upper hand” and “the idea of research is born.”[2512] But Renan was mistaken in thinking such scientific curiosity a new thing as late as the close of the thirteenth century, and perhaps on that account overestimated its importance in this case.

Natural Experiments of Solomon.

Returning to books of experiments, we may note a treatise whose contents are very similar to the Eighty-eight Natural Experiments of Rasis, the Book of Fires of Marcus Grecus, and the Secretum philosophorum, namely, Some experiments which King Solomon composed because of his love for, and the imploring of, a most excellent queen, and they are experiments of nature.[2513] Instead of the experiment with the snake in the pot we now have rats in a cage, whose squealing when a fire is heated is supposed to attract other rats. Again we are told how to write invisible letters, how to make a candle burn in water,[2514] how to light a candle from the mouth of an image painted upon the wall. This is done by painting the mouth with sulphur and turpentine and applying the wick of the candle to it just after the candle has been blown out and before it has quite ceased to glow. Quicklime as well as sulphur and turpentine are used in an image that will illuminate and take fire when water is poured over it. Quicksilver is placed with saltpeter and sulphur inside a ring in order that it may hop about when put near a fire.

Experiments without title or author.

Such experiments sometimes occur without any title as well as without name of author, as in a manuscript where there are a dozen leaves filled with them between the treatise on plantations and the experiments or secrets ascribed to Albert.[2515] Again we encounter the jumping ring, the cooked meat turned raw, men made to appear headless, and artificial thunder which seems produced by use of gunpowder. There is much discussion of colors and alchemy and we are told how to make sal ammoniac and “the best bitumen.”[2516] But the virtues of herbs and animals are not forgotten and many of the experiments are medical or magical. Instructions are given for making a white crow by tampering with the crow’s egg, and how to make human hair grow again by the application of the ashes of a mole, burned in a new pot, mixed with honey. A cure for diarrhoea is to drink milk in which a glowing iron has been quenched. Suspending the tongue of a goose over a sleeper has the appropriate effect of causing him to reveal all his secrets, while the suspension of the head of a bat prevents his waking. The bearer of the herb aristologia is safe from demons whether awake or asleep. To escape from chains one should employ an incantation which contains allusions to the rescue of the apostle Peter from the sea and from prison.

Twelve experiments with snakeskin of John Paulinus.

Frequently found in the manuscripts are twelve experiments with pulverized snakeskin which John Paulinus or John of Spain excerpted from the book in Arabic of the physician or physical scientist, Allchamus or Alchanus or Alanus or Alganus, or whatever his name may have been,[2517] a book entitled Life-Saver (Salus vitae).[2518] This work, as John further informs us at its beginning, he discovered when he “was in Alexandria, a city of the Egyptians.”[2519] Steinschneider listed this John Paulinus as a different person from the well-known twelfth century translator, John of Spain, but at least in one manuscript[2520] he is called both John of Spain and John Paulinus.[2521]

Marvelous virtues of snakeskin.

Another manuscript[2522] presents our treatise under the amusing caption, “Twelve experiments with snakeskin and some of them true.” All due credit should be given for such partial scepticism but it might well have been made more sweeping. The snakeskin is to be pulverized when the moon is in the first degree of Aries, and one manuscript adds that this must be the full moon.[2523] This powder will heal a wound in the head, or will keep the head from being wounded, if it is sprinkled on the hair. A face, washed with it and water, is terrible to foes and secures the faithful allegiance of friends. If the powder is scattered in an enemy’s house, he will be unable to remain there. To secure an attentive hearing in a council, sprinkle a little at your feet. Place some on the tip of the tongue, and you will be invincible in scientific disputations. “And this has been tested many times.” This healing and magic powder also enables one to see into the future, to learn another’s secrets, to insure the fidelity of a servant or messenger, to guard against poison, to win the love of a woman. If a leper eats some of it, his disease will grow no worse. This last experiment is perhaps suggested by Galen’s story of the cure of skin disease by drinking wine in which a viper had died.

Other treatises concerning the virtues of snakes.

At the end of these twelve experiments one manuscript adds that “John in the same book gives additional statements which Alcanus composed,” and continues with further suggestions concerning the medicinal preparation and uses of snakes and their skins and blood.[2524] Similar are Secrets concerning the Serpent, which, according to a manuscript of the fifteenth century in the Bodleian, Albertus Magnus gave to a doctor of sacred theology of the order of Friars Minor at Nürnberg,[2525] and which direct how to prepare snakes and recount their medicinal virtues. It will be recalled, too, that in our preceding chapter we treated of the Experiments of Nicholas of Poland which made considerable use of pulverized snakes or toads or scorpions, and which are sometimes found in the same manuscripts[2526] as the Twelve Experiments with Snakeskin.

Chemical experiments of Nicholas.

Perhaps this is the same Nicholas to whom chemical experiments are attributed in two Oxford manuscripts.[2527] In the fuller manuscript these experiments are numbered in the margin from one to twenty,[2528] but sometimes more than one recipe or item is found under a number.[2529] Besides some alchemistic generalizations, such as the opening sentence which states that there are seven bodies, namely, Saturn, Jupiter, Mars, Sun, Venus, Mercury, and Moon, and a recipe or two for making gold and silver, the treatise consists of instructions for the preparation of such chemicals as sal ammoniac, quicksilver, arsenic, sulphur, and common salt, and of other recipes similar to those in the Book of Fires of Marcus Grecus.[2530]The author frequently cites the books and experiences of the philosophers but also speaks of his own experiments. Once, for example, he supports the assertions of the philosophers by adding, “And I, Nicholas, say that I have tested these two operations experimentally”:[2531] in another place he says of a powder recommended “by a very wise philosopher” that he has not yet experienced it himself as the operation is long and difficult.[2532]

Books of waters.

In addition to the Book of Fires of Marcus Grecus and the experiments with air in the Secret of Philosophers, we must not forget the treatises in medieval manuscripts devoted to marvelous waters, medical and chemical. We have already seen such works attributed to Aristotle[2533] and to Peter of Spain.[2534] At that time, of course, various liquid compounds and acids were known as “waters”; alcohol, for instance, was called aqua ardens; and in one manuscript some of the “waters” are really dry or solid.[2535] As in the case of the treatises ascribed to Aristotle and Petrus Hispanus, twelve seems to be the favorite number in these medieval collections of waters, but the twelve are not always the same, [2536] and sometimes, while the title says twelve, the text will include more than that number.[2537] Such a collection of twelve waters is sometimes ascribed to Rasis,[2538] and once to Vergil,[2539] but often occurs anonymously.[2540] Other treatises on waters in general and the fountain of youth in especial are ascribed to famous names, Albert Magnus,[2541] Arnald of Villanova,[2542] and Thaddeus of Florence[2543] and of the University of Bologna, a thirteenth century writer upon anatomy and medicine who lived from 1223 to 1303. We also encounter Nine Waters of the Philosophers,[2544] Physical Waters,[2545] and a Book of Saint Giles concerning the virtues of certain waters which he made while dwelling in the desert.[2546] The saint would scarcely seem to have chosen the best place for the investigation of his subject. Such are a few specimens of medieval works on waters; many more might be collected.[2547]

Colors.

Experiments with colors are also of rather frequent occurrence in medieval manuscripts, and seem to a large extent to be anonymous. I have not sufficiently examined them to be able to say what additions may be made in the manuscripts of the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries to the recipes already given in the Compositiones ad tingenda, Mappe clavicula, and works of Heraclius and Theophilus of which we have already spoken. Like the Book of Twelve Waters, but not so widespread, is a treatise on twelve colors and their virtues,[2548] while a Virgilius appears again as the author of Pictorial Waters for Painting on Linen and Cloth.[2549] The works on colors of Peter of St. Audemar, of John Alcerius, and of John le Bègue have been printed by Mrs. Merrifield,[2550] but many brief anonymous collections of recipes concerning colors still remain in manuscript.[2551]

Necromantic experiments.

Other examples of necromantic experiments are found in the manuscripts than those of the Liber sacratus, Picatrix, and the Liber Vaccae, or those which are attributed to Michael Scot and Peter of Abano. An anonymous collection of “conjurations and invocations of spirits to discover thefts and other things of the sort” contains “among many other experiments” some concerning three angels in a crystal, a sibyl in a candle, four kings in a crystal, “a bearded old man,” and the ars episcopalis.[2552] A manuscript at Munich contains “A probable experiment to provoke spirits from all four quarters of the universe, whatever their condition, order, and station, by means of the mass.” “A good experiment in astrology of Master John of Belton” turns out to be necromantic, consisting largely in writing and repeating such words as the Tetragrammaton.[2553]

Experimentum in dubiis.

An “Experiment in cases of doubt” from an early thirteenth century manuscript at Erfurt[2554] may perhaps be described more fully. It should be begun during the March equinox early in the night with psalms and prayers. Starting forth to a spot where potter’s clay may be found, one repeats the Paternoster and Credo as one leaves his house or church. On the road he repeats seven psalms, and if he meets any passers-by, returns no answer to them. Having reached the potter’s earth, he plants his heel upon it and turning successively to the East, South, and North, repeats the magic word “Syos” to each of those cardinal points. Turning to the East again, he utters a short prayer beginning, “Force eternal, innumerable power, true presence of things, I suppliantly beg your clemency.” Then with a trowel with a white handle he cuts the earth about his heel, and digs up enough of it for his purpose, repeating the while a “Te Deum” and “Gloria in excelsis.” Having secured the clay by this ceremony, when he wishes to settle any doubtful question, he writes the words “Yes” and “No” on two bits of parchment, encloses these in pastilles of the clay, places a dish of holy water between the two pastilles, saying, “In the name of Father, Son, and Holy Ghost” and another pious phrase. Then he puts the pastilles in the water, adjuring them by the names of Elias and Moses to show him the truth of the matter in question, and opens for his answer the first pastille which floats towards him.

“A natural experiment.”

What we should regard as specimens of downright sorcery and magic are sometimes presented in the manuscripts not merely as “experiments,” but as instances of purely scientific procedure. Under the title, “A natural experiment,” which, however, is likewise called “ineffable,” a writer in a Paris manuscript[2555] describes three Practicae which may be used against enemies or serpents. Of these practical experiments the most interesting is the first, which the writer learned of when he was at Paris from Thomas de Pisan. This Thomas is also spoken of as of Bologna and as the physician of the French king. Evidently he is the father of the poetess, Christine de Pisan, Thomas of Bologna, who made astrological predictions and composed philters for the learned king, Charles V of France, and the duke of Burgundy, and who also wrote a letter on the philosopher’s stone.[2556] The object of Thomas’ “experiment” was the expulsion of the English companies of mercenaries from the French kingdom. He procured earth from the center and the four quarters of France and under a selected constellation made five images of lead or tin in the form of nude men. On the forehead of each he wrote the name of the king of England or one of the captains of the companies and on the jaw and breast astrological characters and names. These images were hollow and were filled with the aforesaid earth and at the proper astrological moment were buried in the five aforesaid regions with an incantation to the effect that this was the perpetual burial and total destruction and annihilation of the said captain and king, and the permanent expulsion of him and every official or adherent of his “so long as this work shall endure by God’s will, Amen.” The images were buried face down with their hands behind their backs, “and within a few months all the said companies had fled from the realm.” The writer states that all three of his Practicae are based on the first Practica of Thebit ben Corath, and notes that Albert the commentator has said in his Mirror[2557] that such images are purely natural like medical recipes.

Variety of experiments in medieval manuscripts.

It is hard to tell where to make an end of describing or even of merely illustrating the many collections and isolated examples of “experiments,” medical, chemical, culinary, artistic, magical, and necromantic, both of spurious and of anonymous authorship, to be found in medieval manuscripts. There are “experiments, good and best” which include such illusions as making a river appear to flow in a house;[2558] there are “some experiments in which occur many words written in a mystic form with vowels omitted”;[2559] there is an experiment to catch birds which begins by using the tongue of a dog;[2560] there are “Sounds of trumpets and other mathematical experiments,”[2561] and “A booklet of experiments for this and that,” which opens with instructions how to dissolve phlegmatic humors.[2562] In a single manuscript are “incantations and other experiments,” “Experiments of Alexander,” “experiments from Galen’s book of Dinamidia,” “general experiments,” “Experiments of Rusticus” who is perhaps Rusticus Elpidus, physician to Theodoric, king of the Ostrogoths, and “Experiments of Parisius, Abbot of St. Mark’s.”[2563] A certain group of experiments seems to be associated in some way with the emperor Frederick, presumably the Second.[2564] Another group of perhaps twenty-five experiments was collected at Paris about 1331 and “approved by divers doctors of the same dear university.”[2565] In an Escorial manuscript are experiments of a chancellor and cardinal.[2566]

An experimental manuscript.

A manuscript which belonged to an English family in Northamptonshire in the fifteenth century and received some additional entries in the sixteenth provides a good example of the scope and character of the experimental interest of those times. Omitting some brief family records, we find its main contents to be a calendar, list of eclipses, table and chart of the influences of planets and signs on the human body, treatises on flebotomy, on colors, a problem credited to Aristotle, verses on the seven liberal arts, medical recipes, a compotus, arithmetics, a Sphere of Pythagoras, the treatise of John Paul on experiments with snakeskin, Alfraganus on signs from thunder, what seem to be extracts from the Herbarium of Apuleius and perhaps from the treatise of Sextus Papirius Placitus on animals which so often accompanies it. This last is accompanied by a memorandum to the effect that there are many true things here and also many false ones. Charms and further recipes are followed by a treatise on the conduct of waters and siphoning and how to learn the altitude of objects, which is not unlikely to be an extract from the Secretum philosophorum. A treatise on the moon in the twelve signs is followed by one “on philosophy according to Aristotle with cases and experiments proving its thesis.” It opens with the words, “In these things nature works in an occult fashion.” Next comes a charm in English, then more recipes in Latin, the Physiognomy of Aristotle, a treatise of chiromancy, a Dream Book of Daniel, a further discussion of colors, the familiar charm to find a thief by means of a loaf of bread, and various tricks and fireworks.[2567]

Experimental character of the Sloane manuscripts.

How long this experimental literature, which we have been describing for the medieval period, retained its popularity, and how large a place it had even in the esteem of celebrated scholars and scientists, may be inferred from the very prominent place which it occupies in the manuscript collection of Sir Hans Sloane, which with his books and scientific collections formed the nucleus of the present British Museum. Sir Hans Sloane, who lived for nearly a century from 1660 to 1753, won such a reputation both as a medical man and a naturalist that in 1727 he became physician to the king and succeeded Sir Isaac Newton as president of the Royal Society. Yet the manuscripts collected by this distinguished scientist contain about as much alchemy and astrology as they do medicine, while even in those of the seventeenth century experiments of every sort continue to play as great a part as ever before. Indeed the general tenor of the seventeenth century manuscripts in the collection seems rather more superstitious than in those of any previous century. This may be due to the fact that superstition is being crowded out of the printed page by that time, and finds a refuge only in private manuscripts, but I am doubtful if such was the fact. We must remember that the seventeenth century was marked by the witchcraft delusion, and even Boyle had not quite lost faith in alchemy despite his The Sceptical Chemist. Perhaps, however, the combined influences of the Index Expurgatorius, English censorship of the press, and the natural tendency or pretense of alchemy and magic to adopt secret and cryptic methods, were enough to keep a number of works or “secrets” in manuscript form. Be that as it may, it certainly seems as if the recipe notion dominated the catalogue of the Sloane manuscripts and especially so in those of the seventeenth century. I have not begun to note all the titles with the word or idea of experiment in them, but I should like to run over a considerable number of the subjects of seventeenth century manuscripts which I have jotted down, and which I think will serve to illuminate the character of the science of that time, and its relation to the preceding medieval literature in the same field.

Some seventeenth century experiments.

We may begin with “Notable experimentall receipts taken out of the booke of Hen. Rantzovius de conservanda valetudine.”[2568] We pass on to “Small empirical experiments” in both German and Latin,[2569] and to “Doctor Collette’s Experyment for the memory” and several medical receipts.[2570] “A new system for an experimental college” is dated 1680.[2571] In a long manuscript devoted to alchemy are found, among other items, “the experiment of some unknown,” “some remarks about the magic image in a Benedictine monastery near Florence,” “a marvelous experiment from a book printed in Flanders, but in my opinion a deceit,” and some other “sophistical experiments.”[2572] To a manuscript in which are contained “Severall receipts of my mother’s which she had chiefly in my Lord Berkeley’s family”[2573] soon succeeds another in which four out of the six treatises are respectively anatomical, chemical, medical, and philosophical experiments.[2574] “An experiment with a mirror, for theft” and so forth, is explained by the catalogue as being “rather sundry charms by which experiments may be made.”[2575]

More recipes and experiments.

“Lady Rennelagh’s choise receipts, as also some of Capt. Willis, who valued them above gold,”[2576] are probably not very different from “A Booke of Receipts collected on Sundry occations, being for the moste part such as are commonly used in shopps yett nott to be found in the London Pharmacopaeia; with some other receipts of certaine Chymicall preparations most in use in Apothecaries shopps with the way of makeing them.”[2577] “L’arsenal des secrets,” besides recipes for making potable gold and various elixirs, contains “Diverses secrets curieux” in the way of directions how to stamp or cast metals, to make colors, ink, and dyes.[2578] Thus we see that industrial processes are still “mysteries.” A method of shooting guns without noise[2579] excites our curiosity, but we recall that Thomas Browne classes among his Vulgar Errors the belief in a “white powder that kills without report,” concerning which, he wittily remarks, “there is no small noise in the world.”[2580] We turn to “Experiments made at several times upon Oxe’s galls,”[2581] to “Preparations and Experiments” and “Some excerpts from the experiments of Andreas Michelius.”[2582] In a manuscript which consists chiefly of recipes we find directions for making saltpeter and gunpowder and various kinds of fireworks.[2583] An experimental remedy for the gout[2584] carries our thoughts back to Alexander of Tralles, while a manuscript written in 1579 consists of “A book of certain experiments of physics, copied out of an old written book in old English, bearing the date of 1329, by John Nettleton, with additions of medical receipts and observations in a later hand.”[2585]

Magic experiments.

We come to the books of magic in the manuscripts of the seventeenth century in the Sloane collection and find them full and running over with “experiments.” “An excellent approved experiment to cause a thief to come again with the goods.” “An experiment to call out spirits that are keepers of treasure trove, either by an artificiall inchantment magically, or otherwise by Divine justice.” “An introduction teaching the use of the foregoing treates and thereby other experiments.”[2586] Another manuscript has “some experiments and incantations and imperfect conjurations written by John Evans,” “some experiments for sport,” “an experiment with book and key to reveal the thief by the names of the suspects,” and the equally superstitious experiments of William Bacon.[2587] Elsewhere we meet “A magical treatise containing a number of experiments and directions to those that will call any spirit,”[2588] “Experiments for finding out stolen or hidden things by the help of the Chrystal Stone,” “A noble experiment of King Solomon with astrological tables,”[2589] “Experiments for love,” “Experiments for all games,”[2590] “the doctrine of all experiments,”[2591] “some magical experiments,” “many experiments of magic,”[2592] and so on and so forth; in short, magic experiments galore.

APPENDIX I

MANUSCRIPTS OF THE LIBER VACCAE

The three first MSS in the list are those which I have used. Steinschneider (1906), p. 43, listed four MSS: Digby 71, Corpus Christi 125 and 132, and Montpellier 277. The three which I examined were wretchedly written and full of abbreviations.

Arundel 342, 14th century, Italian hand, fols. 46r-54v. The Titulus is “Incipit liber institutionum activorum (sic) Platonis in quo Humayn filius Zacarie sic loquitur dicens.” The Incipit is “Galienus cum praeparavit ut abreviaret librum Platonis physici, qui nominatus est liber anguemis.” The Explicit is “Expletus est liber aggregationum Anguemis Platonis cum expositione Humayn filii Ysaach gratia Dei.”

Digby 71, 14-16th century, fols. 36r-56, Liber Vaccae, precepta et experimenta alchemica et magica, praemisso prologo (ut videtur) longo. Incipit prologus, “Conferat tibi Deus mores nobiles.” Incipit liber (fol. 40v) “Galienus cum propter amatum voluit abbreviares (sic) librum Platonis philosophi qui nominatus est liber anequems.” Ad calcem (fol. 56) “Completur liber anequems Platonis id est liber vacce.”

Corpus Christi 125, 13-15th century, fols. 121v-141r (141-60, according to the system of numbering which I have followed in the foot-notes of the preceding chapter). This MS repeats the first prologue, found in Digby 71 but missing in Arundel 342. It ends, “Completus est liber Anaguenis, id est, liber vaccae.”

Corpus Christi 132, 15th century, fols. 139-66, has the same title and opening as the preceding.

CLM 22292, 12-13th century, fol. 68, Epistola de medicina, opening, “Conferat tibi deus mores,” and ending, “Explicit epistola Ameti” (a name which usually means the astrologer Alfraganus); fol. 70, Prologus in librum Anguemis, of which the text does not seem to follow, since at fol. 72 comes a commentary on the Aphorisms of Hippocrates. In this early MS therefore we seem to have only the two prologues.

Amplon. Quarto 188, written in 1267 A. D., 1319, and later, fols. 103-4, Liber vacce seu liber aggregacionis diversorum philosophorum, opening, “Primor queritur quare risus magis sequitur titillacionem,” and closing, “significet fleubotomia predominari et odor debet et etiam.” From its brevity and opening and closing words this would seem to be only a fragment of our treatise. Schum states that it was originally followed in the MS by another treatise on nigromancy, since torn out, and that in the sixteenth century the two works were given the common title, “Liber vacce nigromanticus.” But perhaps it is only a part of the Liber Vacce that has been torn out.

Florence II-iii-214, 15th century, fol. 57-, “Liber institutionum activarum Platonis in quo Hunayn filius Ysac sic loquitur;” fols. 59-72, “Inquit Hunayn, Galenus dixit ... / ... completus est liber agregationis aneguemis maioris et minoris Platonis cum expositione Unayn filii Ysac et declaratione Galieni.”

The treatise was once found in the library of St. Augustine’s Abbey, Canterbury, 1275, vacca platonis.

Among MSS which T. Allen had in 1622 but which are no longer in the Digby collection was, in 16mo, Liber Anequems Platonis, id est, Liber vaccae.

APPENDIX II

MANUSCRIPTS OF THE SECRETUM PHILOSOPHORUM

Of the following MSS I have chiefly used Additional 32622, Digby 37, and Digby 153.

CU Trinity 1214, good hand of late 12th century, fols. 71-82, is perhaps an earlier precursor of our treatise, judging from the following headings given by James: “De aque ductibus, de puteis fodiendis, de probatione aque ... de fistulis organicis ... de calce ... de fabrica ville rustice disponenda, de balneis ... de coloribus ... de norme institutione, de horologii institutione ... de solidamentis, de altitudine arborum sive turrium probanda, probacio auri, de arte multiplicandi, de arte organizandi.”

Amplon. Quarto 330, mid 13th-early 14th century, fols. 1-23, appears to be the earliest of the MSS of our treatise.

Amplon. Quarto 361, English hand of early 14th century, fols. 27-40.

Additional 32622, small octavo written in England in early 14th century, fols. 3-84, “Iste liber quem prae manibus habemus vocatur Secretum philosophorum, et intitulatur isto nomine quia in eo continentur quaedam secreta quae reputatione vulgari sunt impossibilia, apud philosophos secreta et necessaria.”

Additional 18752, small quarto, 14-16th century, fols. 1-28, “Secretum philosophorum,” imperfect.

Sloane 2579, fol. 2-.

Egerton 2852, mid 14th century, fols. 5v-49v.

Digby 37, 14th century, fols. 4-43, “Secretum philosophorum.”

Digby 71, 14-16th century, fols. 85-97, Titulus as in Addit. 32622, imperfect, leaving off in the midst of “Arithmetic.”

Digby 153, 14th century, fols. 148-67v.

Rawlinson C, 7, 14th century, fols. 51-87, mutilated at close.

Corpus Christi 132, 15th century, fols. 1-59, Titulus as in Addit. 32622 and Digby 71.

CU Trinity 1082, 15th century, fols. 1-110.

CU Trinity 1144, late 15th century, fols. 9-54v.

CU Trinity 1351, late 15th century, fols. 1-25, James gives no general title, but his description is sufficient to identify it with our treatise.

Gonville and Caius 413, 15th century, #4, 31 fols.