Georgii Agricolae medici Bermannus, sive de re metallica

—the workshops, in which medicines of every kind are prepared, have nothing today, nor do physicians, if it is permitted to speak the truth, know them. We should be ashamed to read those words so often, to have them so often in our mouths, and yet not know the things they signify. If no one could bear with a sufficiently calm mind a sailor who spoke often of the security of triremes but, when asked what kind of ship a trireme was, could not say because he did not know it—especially if triremes were not lacking in that very sea where he was accustomed to sail—with what mind, finally, should a physician be tolerated who frequently discourses on the use and properties of medicines of which he is utterly ignorant? Especially when it is permitted for him, by applying the art and diligence that are necessary in this part, to find them sometimes even in the region where he lives?

Indeed, it is our ignorance and negligence that causes many things to remain hidden, the use of many things to perish, and many things to be lost entirely. And what wonder is it if we do not heal certain ulcers, which otherwise perhaps might be cured, when we can make very few plasters, especially those composed of metallic substances, which the ancients used with the greatest utility to humanity and their own greatest praise?