Note 4 — Chapter IX · NORTH TIROL—THE INNTHAL. INNSBRUCK (continued).

But, it may be asked, the wonder-working phials once vouchsafed to men, would surely be taken good care of. There is a legend to provide for that too.4 When the other doctors of Innsbruck found that Paracelsus so far exceeded them in skill, they determined to poison him. Paracelsus had knowledge of their plot by his arts, he knew too that there was only one remedy against the poison they had adopted, and he shut himself up, telling his servant not to disturb him for five days. At the end of the fourth day, however, the curious servant came into his room and broke the spell. Paracelsus had employed a wonder-working spider to draw out the poison, which it would have done in the course of five days. Disturbed on the fourth, Paracelsus knew he must die. Determined that the jealous members of his profession should not profit by their crime, he sent his servant with the two phials and bid him stand in the middle of the Inn-bridge and throw them into the river. Where they fell into the river the water was streaked with molten gold.