De metallorum ortu & causis

movement. Therefore, let everyone beware of it, and especially those suffering from arthritis arthritici, to whom it is usually given internally by the Paracelsians to soothe joint pains. There is no lack here, I think, of those who have made trial of the wonderful powers of this Ladanum and of relaxing oils to their own significant harm. But it is a happy man (as it is usually said) whom the dangers of others make cautious; and likewise: He is happily wise who is wise through the danger of another. Truly, I say no more about this venerable medicine pharmaco: but I soon proceed to another plainly ridiculous one, which the Paracelsians are accustomed to give to those suffering from quartan fever quartana a fever occurring every fourth day, often associated with malaria, and this they call Cinere oculorum cancri Ash of crab's eyes. This seems absurd to me in two ways. First, because by its dryness and sharpness it increases the quartan fever. For it is confessed by all dogmatic physicians that individual diseases are increased by similar things, and decreased by contraries. And yet, a quartan fever is a dry affliction by reason of its cause, namely the melancholic humor humoris melancholici black bile, which by nature