ON THE CHEMICAL WORK OF THE EPISTOLARY KIND OF THE MOST ILLUSTRIOUS ANDREW LIBAVIUS, PHYSICIAN AND POET

AN ELEGY BY D. BARTHOLOMAUS HUBNER, PHILOSOPHER AND PHYSICIAN OF ERFURT

As chemical medicines are now no longer new, nor are they
Facts known today to the first schools:
But having been unearthed from the ancient books of the Arabs and Saracens,
They now shine with a more splendid countenance,
And our pharmacies have known them for a long time,
And augmented by these, they have given them their place of their own accord:
Thus they do not drive away all diseases from the body,
Nor do they constitute new proofs of the art.
They can only be called a part, but not the whole art of healing,
If you consider the matter with dexterity,
And they adorn and accumulate the art of Machaon an ancient Greek physician, son of Asclepius,
And they serve it, they do not dominate it.
Therefore the lying boast of the vain flock collapses,
Which Paracelsus has as an admirer,
And the bombastic dreams of many are confused,
Through which they now wish to be physicians immediately,
However much they may offer no art or method,
Which Hippocrates teaches, and which you, Galen, hold.
Those who are of such a petulant wit that they wish every
Doctrine of the Ancients to have been of no value,
And not the medicines so often proven through all the ages,
And which the provident care of nature has given;
And they say that these contribute nothing to human health,
Unless the flame and force of fire first renews them.
And although they do not desire to know the powers of things,
Which the parent earth has given for our comforts;
Nor do they know how much Vulcan god of fire and metalworking can do in them,
And which are fit for us, or less fit,