Valentine, Basil

, is the name, real or assumed, of a celebrated alchymist, and one of the founders of modern chemistry. The few particulars we have of his life are so contradictory that many have supposed that no such person ever existed, and that the name Basil Valentine, which is composed of a Greek and Latin word, signifying a powerful king, was a disguise under which some adept rvished to conceal his real name, and at the same time indicate the sovereign power of chemistry. At what time this adept lived is also a disputed point. Some say he lived ia | the twelfth century, others make him a native of Erfurt, born in 1394, and give 1415 as the date of his writings, or as the time when he began to write, but this last is certainly inadmissible, as he mentions the morbus Galliots and Luts Gallica as being common in Germany, which we know could not be the ase before the end of the fifteenth century.

Those who make him a native of Erfurt tell us likewise that he was a Benedictine monk, and that after making some experiments on the stibium of the ancients, he threw a quantity of it to the hogs, whom it first purged and afterwards fattened. This suggested to him that it might be useful in order to give a little of the embonpoint to his brother monks, who had become lean by fasting and mortification. He accordingly prescribed it, and they all died, whence the medicine was afterwards known by the name of antimony, quasi anti-monk. It is added that his works were not known for a long time after his death, until on opening one of the pillars of the church of Erfurt, they were miraculously discovered. But unfortunately for these stories, Boerhaave has proved that there never was a monastery of Benedictines at Erfurt, and we have already proved that the books published under the name of Basil Valentine could not have been written in the beginning of the fifteenth century. It appears, however, whatever their date, that they were originally written in Dutch, and that a part only have been translated into Latin, and probably have received additions from other hands. All that have been published are still in considerable request, and are become scarce. Among them are; 1. “De microcosmo, deque magno mundi ministerio et medicina hominis,” Marpurg, 1609, 8vo. 2. “Azoth, sive Aureliae philosophorum,” Francfort, 1613, 4to. 3. “Practice, una cum duodecim clavibus et appendice,” ibid. 1618, 4to. 4. “Apocalypsis chymica,Erfurt, 1624, 8vo. 5. “Manifestatio artificiorum,Erfurt, 1624, 4to. 6. “Currus triumphalis antimonii,” Leip. 1624, 8vo, reprinted at Amsterdam, 1671, 12mo, “cum commentariis Theod. Kerkringii.” 7. “Tractatus chimicophilosophus de rebus naturalibus et praeternaftiralibus metallorum et mineralium,” Francfort, 1676, 8vo. 8. “HaKographia, de praeparatione, usu, ac virtutibus omnium salium mineralium, animalium, ac vegetabiliuni, ex manuscriptis Basilii Valentini collecta ab Ant. Salimncio,Bologna, 1644, 8vo. There are editions of these in Dutch, and translations into French, English, and other languages | of most of them. Whoever Basil was, his experiments are always to be depended on, and his style is clear and precise, unless where he talks of his arcana and the philosopher’s stone, on which he is as obscure as any of his brethren. After every preparation, he gives its medicinal uses, and it has been said that Van Helmont, Lemery, the father, and other moderns, are under greater obligations to his works than they have thought proper to acknowledge. He was the first who recommended the internal use of antimony, and he has enriched the pharmacopoeia with various preparations of that metal, particularly the empyreumatic carbonate of antimony, of which Sylvius Deleboe claimed the discovery. 1


Eloy, Dict. HisJ, de Medecine, Biog. Univ. Both in art. Basile.