MEDIEVAL MEDICINE: A READER

67. ROGER BACON: ALCHEMY AND THE MEDICAL

PAYOFF OF “EXPERIMENTAL SCIENCE”

Roger Bacon was born in England about 1219 and studied at the University of Paris,
where around 1237 he delivered some of the earliest recorded lectures on Aristotle’s sci-
entific treatises. He underwent an intellectual conversion experience when he read The
Secret of Secrets, an Arabic work that claimed to be a letter of advice from Aristotle to
Alexander the Great. The Secret of Secrets implied that knowledge acquired through
experience and experiment, rather than through logical analysis, held the greatest hope
for bettering the lot of mankind. Bacon decided to return to Oxford to pursue this
“experimental science.” He joined the Franciscans in 1257, but a few years later was
accused of holding suspect ideas and was transferred to Paris. Between 1266 and 1268 he
wrote, at the request of Pope Clement IV, a number of manifestos in which he outlined
his proposals for a new approach to integrating science and theology, and appealed for
research funds. Clement IV died in 1268, and Bacon returned to Oxford, where he
continued to write philosophical and theological works. For some reason not entirely
clear, Bacon may have been placed under arrest by his Order in 1277. He died in 1292.
Bacon’s “experimental science” encompasses all the ambiguous meanings of the
Latin word experimentum: “experience,” “trial,” “test,” “experiment,” “something
proven by experience but rationally inexplicable” (see doc. 81). In Bacon’s view, experi-
mental science was the way for medicine to make progress, notably in finding remedies
against old age. In his treatise The Errors of the Doctors, Bacon hurls the usual
accusations against physicians ( for instance, that they were pretentious, argumentative,
and hide-bound), but spends most of his energy arguing that medicine would only
discover effective cures by investing in the study of alchemy. Alchemy, as a technology
for extracting and separating metal from ore, could be harnessed to isolate and purify
the active power in plants and other materia medica, leaving the useless or harmful
parts behind. In the passage below, we pick up the thread of his argument at the point
where he proposes that medical education shift its priorities radically and embrace the
new sciences of power.

a. Medicine and “Experimental Science”: The Opus maius

Source: trans. Robert Belle Burke, The Opus maius of Roger Bacon (Philadelphia: University of
Pennsylvania Press, 1928), vol. 2, pp. 583–87, 617–19, 626–27. Latin.

Having laid down fundamental principles of the wisdom of the Latins so far
as they are found in language, mathematics, and optics, I now wish to unfold
the principles of experimental science, since without experience nothing can
be sufficiently known. For there are two modes of acquiring knowledge,
namely, by reasoning and experience. Reasoning draws a conclusion and

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makes us grant the conclusion, but does not make the conclusion certain,
nor does it remove doubt so that the mind may rest on the intuition of truth
unless the mind discovers it by the path of experience; since many have the
arguments relating to what can be known, but because they lack experience
they neglect the arguments, and neither avoid what is harmful nor follow
what is good. For if a man who has never seen fire should prove by adequate
reasoning that fire burns and injures things and destroys them, his mind
would not be satisfied thereby, nor would he avoid fire, until he placed his
hand or some combustible substance in the fire, so that he might prove by
experience that which reasoning taught. But when he has had actual experi-
ence of combustion his mind is made certain and rests in the full light of
truth. Therefore reasoning does not suffice, but experience does….
He therefore who wishes to rejoice without doubt in regard to the truths
underlying phenomena must know how to devote himself to experiment.
For authors write many statements, and people believe them through rea-
soning which they formulate without experience. Their reasoning is wholly
false. For it is generally believed that the diamond cannot be broken ex-
cept by goat’s blood, and philosophers and theologians misuse this idea. But
fracture by means of blood of this kind has never been verified, although
the effort has been made; and without that blood it can be broken easily.
For I have seen this with my own eyes, and this is necessary, because gems
cannot be carved except by fragments of this stone. Similarly it is generally
believed that the *castoreum employed by physicians [is] the testicles of the
male [beaver (Latin: castor)]. But this is not true, because the beaver has these
[castoreum glands] under its breast, and both the male and female produce
testicles of this kind. Besides these [castoreum glands], the male beaver has its
testicles in their natural place; and therefore what is subjoined is a dreadful
lie, namely that when the hunters pursue the beaver, he himself knowing
what they are seeking cuts out with his teeth these glands. Moreover, it is
generally believed that hot water freezes more quickly than cold in vessels,
and the argument advanced in support of this is that contrary is excited by
contrary, just like enemies meeting each other. But it is certain that cold
water freezes more quickly for any one who makes the experiment. People
attribute this to Aristotle in the second book of the Meteorology; but he cer-
tainly does not make this statement, [although] he does make one like it, by
which they have been deceived, namely that if cold water and hot water are
poured on a cold place, as upon ice, the hot water freezes more quickly, and
this is true. But if hot water and cold are placed in two vessels, the cold will
freeze more quickly. Therefore all things must be verified by experience.
But experience is of two kinds; one is gained through our external senses,
and in this way we gain our experience of those things that are in the heavens

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by instruments made for this purpose, and of those things here below by
means attested by our vision. Things that do not belong in our part of the
world we know through other scientists who have had experience of them.
As, for example, Aristotle on the authority of Alexander sent two thousand
men through different parts of the world to gain experimental knowledge of
all things that are on the surface of the earth, as Pliny bears witness in his
Natural History. This experience is both human and philosophical, as far as
man can act in accordance with the grace given him; but this experience does
not suffice him, because it does not give full attestation in regard to things
corporeal owing to its difficulty, and does not touch at all on things spiritual.
It is necessary, therefore, that the intellect of man should be otherwise aided,
and for this reason the holy patriarchs and prophets, who first gave sciences
to the world, received illumination within and were not dependent on sense
alone. The same is true of many believers since the time of Christ. For the
grace of faith illuminates greatly, as also do divine inspirations, not only in
things spiritual, but in things corporeal and in the sciences of philosophy;
as Ptolemy states in the Centiloquium, namely that there are two roads by
which we arrive at the knowledge of facts, one through the experience of
philosophy, the other through divine inspiration, which is far the better way,
as he says….
Therefore since all the divisions of speculative philosophy proceed by ar-
guments, which are either based on a point from authority or on the other
points of argumentation except this division which I am now examining, we
find necessary the science that is called experimental. I wish to explain it, as
it is useful not only to philosophy, but to the knowledge of God, and for the
direction of the whole world….
Another example can be given in the field of medicine in regard to the
prolongation of human life, for which the medical art has nothing to offer
except the *regimen of health. But a far longer extension of life is possible….
Therefore in regard to this we must strive, that the wonderful and inef-
fable utility and splendor of experimental science may appear and a pathway
may be opened to the greatest secret of secrets, which Aristotle has hidden in
his book on the regimen of life [i.e., Secret of Secrets]. For although the regi-
men of health should be observed in food and drink, in sleep and in wakeful-
ness, in motion and in rest, in *evacuation and retention, in the nature of the
air and in the passions of the mind, so that these matters should be properly
cared for from infancy, no one wishes to take thought in regard to them, not
even physicians, since we see that scarcely one physician in a thousand will
give this matter even slight attention. Very rarely does it happen that any
one pays sufficient heed to the rules of health. No one does so in his youth,
but sometimes one in three thousand thinks of these matters when he is old

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and approaching death, for at that time he fears for himself and thinks of his
health. But he cannot then apply a remedy because of his weakened *powers
and senses and his lack of experience. Therefore fathers are weakened and
beget weak sons with a liability to premature death. Then by neglect of the
rules of health the sons weaken themselves, and thus the son’s son has a dou-
bly weakened constitution, and in his turn weakens himself by a disregard of
these rules. Thus a weakened constitution passes from father to sons, until a
final shortening of life has been reached, as is the case in these days….
Since I have shown that the cause of a shortening of life of this kind is ac-
cidental, and therefore that a remedy is possible, I now return to this example
which I have decided to give in the field of medicine, in which the power of
medical arts fails. But the experimental art supplies the defect of medicine in
this particular …
But the medical art does not furnish remedies against this corruption that
comes from lack of control and failure in regimen, just as all physicians ex-
pert in their art know, although medical authors confess that remedies are
possible, but they do not teach them. For these remedies have always been
hidden not only from physicians, but from the whole rank and file of scien-
tists, and have been revealed only to the most noted….

Bacon argues that the “elixir” to retard old age would be a compound in which the four
elements are perfectly in balance.

If the elements should be prepared and purified in some mixture, so that

there would be no action of one element on another, but so that they would
be reduced to pure simplicity, the wisest have judged that they would have
the most perfect medicine. For in this way the elements would be equal.
Averroes, moreover, asserts in opposition to [Galen] in the tenth book of
the Metaphysics that if a mixture was made with an equality of the miscibles,
the elements would not act or be acted on, nor would they be corrupted.
Aristotle also maintains this view in the fifth book of the Metaphysics, where
he has stated definitely that no corruption occurs when the active potencies
are equal; and this is an assured fact.
For this condition will exist in our bodies after the resurrection. For an
equality of elements in those bodies excludes corruption for ever. For this
equality is the ultimate end of the natural matter in mixed bodies, because it
is the noblest state, and therefore in it the appetite of matter would cease, and
would desire nothing beyond…. Scientists, therefore, have striven to reduce
the elements in some form of food or drink to an equality or nearly so, and
have taught the means to this end. But owing to the difficulty of this very
great experiment, and because few take an interest in experiments, since the

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labor involved is complicated and the expense very great, and because men
pay no heed to the secrets of nature and the possibilities of art, it happens that
very few have labored on this very great secret of science, and still fewer have
reached a laudable end….

b. In Alchemy Lies the Salvation of Medicine: Bacon’s On the

Errors of the Doctors

Source: trans. Mary Catherine Welborn, “The Errors of the Doctors According to Friar Roger
Bacon of the Minor Order,” Isis 18 (1932): 31–33. Latin.

15. The fifth deficiency [in physicians] is that they are ignorant of alchemy
and agriculture; while on the contrary it is quite evident that practically all
*
simple drugs are discussed in these two subjects. There are a great many
difficulties that arise on account of the lack of knowledge of alchemy, because
when the art of medicine teaches the use of the virtues of drugs without the
substance, and it is necessary to do this in an infinite number of cases on
account of the whole mass of poisonous earthy material, no distinction be-
tween them can be made except by means of alchemy which alone gives the
method of extracting each virtue from any substance whatsoever; because it
is necessary in working with drugs that there be resolutions and dissolutions
[that is, extraction] of one thing from another which cannot be made without
the aid of alchemy which gives the method of resolving any one substance
from any other.
16. There are numerous examples of this: for instance, from the kinds of
rhubarb used for *purging *phlegm the *virtue alone should be taken and not
the whole substance, of which fact practically the whole world of doctors is
ignorant; although it is a most beneficial thing and especially good for the
human body, and among all medicines it alone strengthens the natural heat
and invigorates the body, just as is shown by Aristotle in the [Secret of Secrets],
and I too have observed this in my own body. For every other drug weakens
either a little or a great deal as everyone knows, and this alone strengthens.
There is practically an infinite number of other similar examples [of drugs]
from which the virtue should be extracted in order that they may be taken
easily and without danger, as is shown in books dealing with drugs. But not
only should the useful virtue be separated from the substance, but also the
poisonous virtue from the useful substance, as for example in viper’s flesh, in
the head of the dragon, and in many others, it is necessary not only to extract
the poisonous virtue but also other useless things, and not only this but it is
also necessary to make a variety of resolutions of bodies from other bodies,
as in the extraction of elements of various kinds, and various kinds of water,

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and many other things, and whether those substances from which they are
extracted are altogether useless, or poisonous, or indifferent, or useful for
many other purposes. For thus by means of alchemy is extracted the *blessed
oil from bricks, rose water from roses, et cetera which can and should be much
improved by alchemical methods rather than by the untutored. Again many
drugs should be sublimated, just as Avicenna and others have clearly told us.
17. In addition to these and similar ways in which alchemy is useful in
medical practice, the application of its methods is always valuable in medical
theory and highly necessary, since it explains inclusively the entire develop-
ment of things from their elements through the simple humors and then
composite ones even up to the parts of animals and plants and men, as has
already been touched upon; medicine does not explain this development but
constantly sends the doctors to alchemy, as is shown by Avicenna in many
places, and by other authors of medical works. Whence this alone of the
sciences, that is alchemy, dares to explain what are the first four elements,
then the second four, and a third four, up to twelve, from which man and the
whole lower world are made. Whence there are twelve corporeal substances
that have within themselves the power to determine the species of things and
exist in the world per se, and the natural philosopher deals with only four of
these elements. However the doctor, although he touches upon these things,
does not explain them but sends the medical students to alchemy….

68. BISTICIUS: A F LORENTINE GOLDS M ITH

AND M EDIC AL AL CHE M IST

Bisticius (d. ca 1487) is a shadowy figure, though he is mentioned in several fifteenth-

century Italian sources. Some contemporaries characterized him as an illiterate silver-
smith who gained a reputation as an alchemical healer. On the other hand, there is
documentary evidence that Bisticius bequeathed books to the library of the monastery
of San Marco in Florence. Some of these books survive; a note in one of them gives
Bisticius’s full name as “Master [the title of a learned man] Lorenzo son of Master
Jacopo Filippe de Bisticcio” and states that he was a famous professor of medicine. A
manuscript of alchemical and medical treatises written out by one Bartholomaeus Mar-
cellus, and now in Venice (San Marco lat. VI 282), says that Bartholomaeus copied
many alchemical works from books owned by Bisticius. It adds that because Bisticius
was a goldsmith and knew about sublimations, he “became a marvelous doctor, beyond
the most famous physicians of this age, so that he seemed no empiric but the supreme
monarch of medicine, and was so courted by all the nobles, lords and princes of Italy,
as if he had been the oracle of Apollo and with immense gain for himself, and there
seemed to be in him the soul and reason of most holy Hippocrates of yore” (as cited

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