It would be unnecessary to enumerate any more of such impious fancies,
if the founder of this still lurking sect, now partly revivified, had
not asserted, with astonishing effrontery, that human life was capable
of prolongation, like a fire kept up by combustible matter, and that he
was in the possession of a secret, which could verify this assertion. It
is evident, however, from the testimony of Libavius, a man of
unquestionable veracity, that this doughty champion in medical
chemistry, or rather alchemy, Paracelsus, notwithstanding his bold
assertions, died as before observed, at Sulzburgh in Germany, in the
Hospital of St. Stephen's in 1541: and that his death was chiefly
occasioned by the singular and desolate mode of life, which he had for a
long time pursued. When a competent knowledge of the economy of the
human frame is wanting, to enable a man to discriminate between internal
and external causes and effects, it will be impossible to ascertain, or
to counteract, the different causes by which our health is deranged.
This evidently was the case with Paracelsus, and many other
life-prolongers who have succeeded him; and should a fortunate
individual ever fix upon a remedy, possessing the power of checking
disease, or lengthening out human existence (an expectation never to be
realized) he will be indebted to chance alone for the discovery.
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