Physiologia Medica

The opportunity for this work arose from the lectures he formerly held here at our University of Basel original: "Basiliensi Academia", as can be gathered from the very beginning of the first book. It would have been desirable for him to have reduced the remaining parts of Medicine to their sources with equal skill, as he mentions them frequently, especially in the final chapter of the first book. However, he was unable to bring a complete outline original: "sciagraphiam" of them to completion because of his medical duties and the very burdensome tasks of constructing the Theater This refers to Zwinger's massive "Theatrum Humanae Vitae," an encyclopedic project. Therefore, let us enjoy what is available with a grateful mind. I did not wish to keep these things for myself alone, but for the reasons already stated, I wished to communicate them candidly and honestly with the students of the medical family. Furthermore, in many places where the occasion arises, he scatters his opinion concerning Theophrastus Paracelsus Philippus Aureolus Theophrastus Bombastus von Hohenheim, a famous Swiss physician and alchemist, our Swiss Hermit. Everyone can see how far the son deviates from the father's judgment, as in the "Epistle on Chemical Principles" original: "Chymicorum principiorum epistola", the son asserted that Paracelsus was a chemist rather than a physician or a philosopher.

To you, however, my noble Lord Veznici, I thought this literary gift should be offered, as I said at the beginning, also because it exhibits no common example of the true method, for which I know you are most studious. It is rare among men of your rank to find such an example of diligence. You wished to be present for our instructions in political readings, which we

strove to lead toward the expanded thread of Ariadne's method a logical path through a complex subject, named after the mythological thread used to escape the Labyrinth. In due time, when a greater opportunity to polish that argument is given, I will make public the foundations of that subject, while preserving the principles of the great statesman Aristotle. The most noble man Jacques Bongars a French scholar and diplomat, the King of France's legate to the German princes, preferred Aristotle's principles—contained in a few pages—to the entire collections of certain political writers, according to his accurate judgment. You wished to be present and to judge kindly that you proceed much further by this way of teaching than by any shortcuts of others' journeys. This is surely because of your excellent character, and the sweetness and elegance of your manners. You are entirely devoted to this, so that as a most noble shoot of a generous family, you may be considered worthy of its fame, not so much by right of succession as by the merit of virtue and the praise of learning. These are the things that alone ennoble and "hide the head among the clouds" A poetic reference to achieving great height or fame. Thus, you do nothing in this your youth, in this climate of a foreign sky, that you would ever regret. As you know, Philip Philip II of Macedon, King of the Macedonians, desired this for his son Alexander Alexander the Great through the private instruction of the philosopher Aristotle when he reached manhood. You have proposed to hope for and attain this in this very progress of a tender age. Since he who wishes to be an old man must become one early, you hasten toward the summit of true happiness with a great applause of hope and admiration from all those who have come to know you at home and to love and esteem you abroad.