Shadows of My Father

by Christoph Werner

  “Doctor Luther,” said my mistress, “it is quite to my liking that you will from now on adorn our court with your eruditeness and knowledge of medicine and pharmacy. I want to make claim to your services in a further matter. My husband has already given his consent. And I hasten to say that he, too, will want something more from you than just your medical services. And this can have interesting and far-reaching consequences for you.

  “But now to my request. Since my arrival in Dresden, I have noted a lamentable lack of apothecaries in our city. There is only one, the Old Apothecary, and perhaps you have seen the state it is in. The laboratory is dirty, the assistants are unfriendly and ignorant, the stock is unordered and part of it moldy, there is no well-kept apothecary book, and people increasingly complain to the council and the elector about bad, ineffective, and even health-endangering medicaments that are also too expensive. This I want to remedy with your help. Your predecessor, Dr. Peucer, a very knowledgeable though sometimes doubtful man, was unwilling to spend his time on these things, as he was more interested in geodesy, astronomy, and mathematics. You, I seem to recall, have known him since his time in Wittenberg.”

  I made an affirmative bow and was surprised at what the electoress knew about me.

  “At least,” she continued, “we should put into practice what the highly famous and noble Emperor Frederick had demanded and ordered. Do you know these regulations?”

  My interest for everything historical has always been strong, and naturally I had a thorough knowledge of the historia medicinae et pharmaciae. But my prudence, or should I say cunning, told me to give the impression that the electoress told me something new. At the same time, as archiator I could not be without any knowledge in this field. So I did not answer her question directly but nodded knowingly to her revelations.

  Her Electoral Grace now started on a veritable speech, and it seemed to me that she was not making it for the first time. Later I learned that she had for quite a time been involved in the improvement of the pharmacy assistants, midwives, and herb girls.

  “You know, Dr. Luther, that a properly equipped and maintained apothecary is of the highest importance for the whole ars medicinae. Without apothecary, without pharmacy, no medicine.

  “A big step forward in Europe for the healing and pharmaceutical arts was made when the glorious Emperor Frederick II, who not without reason was called Stupor Mundi, or the Amazement of the World, ordered all people in his Sicilian realm who wanted to become physicians to study at the Schola Medica Salernitana, the first medical school in the known world.”

  Here, I found, I could insert something without angering the electoress and still show my knowledge. “Yes,” I said, “Salerno, where the last Ostrogoths in AD 555 surrendered to the troops of the Eastern Roman Empire.”

  Obviously this was news to the electoress, but she did not let it be known and went on: “The emperor ordered that an anatomical college be added to the medical school and corpses be provided for dissection. Those could be had in abundance, as the emperor was not squeamish with his enemies. In the interest of anatomy, to his credit, he in many cases dispensed with torture, which would disfigure the bodies and thus confuse the anatomist.

  “You are well aware yourself, Dr. Luther,” she interrupted her educational speech, “that even today corpses for anatomical purposes are difficult to come by.”

  I resumed my nodding, stronger than before.

  “The noble Staufer, to which dynasty Frederick belonged, had achieved great things for the apothecaries by demanding in his medicinal order of AD 1241: ‘There must be no common business of physician and pharmacist. Physicians may not possess pharmacies and are not allowed to trade medicaments.’”

  Here she gave me a sharp look, as if she believed I would sell medicine and thereby bypass the apothecaries.

  Well, to be honest, this happened now and then, because my Aurum potabile, or gold water, as well as later my Unguentum de nitro, or nitro-unguent, as well as the fine Magisterium perlarum, or master mother of pearl, which I sold as saltpeter salve and master powder, were very profitable, which I did not want to share with the pharmacists. Also, I did not want to share the secret recipes with others.

  Master powder and saltpeter salve were excellent against many complaints, as were many drugs that I extracted from plants by means of spirit. As to the master powder, I could observe with many a patient that the name alone, which did not contain any indication of its composition, effected an improvement.

  Thinking about these things, I probably looked a bit distracted, because the electoress said rather loudly, “Dr. Luther, do I still have your attention?”

  I responded quickly, “Of course, Your Grace,” and forced myself to listen to her intently.

  “On the other hand,” said the lady, “pharmacists were not allowed to treat patients. The authorities were required to monitor the preparation of the medicaments, and the pharmacist had to buy impeccable raw material, to make all recipes as the doctor had ordered or as prescribed in an up-to-date book of medicaments. He had to visibly show the price and composition of the medicines, to offer them to the poor at reduced prices, to act solely for the good of the patient, and to prove his expertise with a certificate as well as master the Latin language, and so on.

  “But alas,” the mistress sighed here, “how long it takes to put into practice such reasonable regulations. Look at the apothecaries today and observe the itinerant traders in medicines, and you will see how much is still lacking from the implementation of the orders of the famous emperor and how much we still have to do.

  “We’ll start,” she then said, “tomorrow morning with a visit to the Old Apothecary. Please be there in front of it at exactly ten of the clock, and await my litter.”

  With this she dismissed me.

  This talk I took for a good beginning of my work, and I felt sure of the goodwill of the electoress. I had before heard about the great influence she exercised on the politics of the elector, such a great influence that people at the court whispered to each other the impudent word of gynocracy. What this led to will be reported.

  The visit to the Old Apothecary next morning caused quite a stir. I stood in front of the door on time, when the litter bearers put down the litter with their mistress. People stopped, gawked, and jostled, and the guards who accompanied the princess had to clear the way for her into the apothecary.

  Here we found exactly what Lady Anna had described the day before. The laboratory was unaired and dirty; light could hardly penetrate the small uncleaned windows; and the assistants were unwashed and uncombed. It was obvious that no one had notified them of our visit.

  The electoress, to whom of course the assistants behaved servilely, ordered her amanuensis to write exact minutes of her orders and then said she expected me to check on the state of things within half a year.

  Everything stood in absolute disarray. The oak bark used for hemorrhoids was in a wooden box beside the Pasta regalis. There were tins, flasks, phials, mortar and pestle, aqua destillata in an unclean wooden barrel, camphor oil, nutmeg balm, diaphoretic salve, henbane extract, plasters, horn spoons to fill in powder, and herb bouquets as well as fat from hanged people, urine, breast milk, and other animalia in addition to the magic powder of the unicorn. It was a miracle that under these circumstances the apothecary could do business at all.

  In addition, the apothecary traded groceries, spices, spirits, or aqua ardens, which the chemist distilled himself and could produce for sale—a privilege that had been granted to the apothecary since Johannes Huffener founded it and that had to be renewed yearly. The electoress told me quietly in an aside that she was considering not renewing it but instead granting the privilege to the Court Apothecary being planned and over which the court alone, and no longer the city, would have jurisdiction. Then, to my surprise, she added in good German: “Apothecary is apothecary, and schnapps is schnapps.”

  The electoress ordered the separanda to be put on a special shelf and to b
e labeled as such. Under this were subsumed all substances that had a strong effect and could, when wrongly dosed, be dangerous, such as Lilium convallium, or lily of the valley, which can be either poison or medicament and, when prescribed correctly, helps against falling sickness. Another one, more importantly, is the Spanish fly.

  This latter medicine has caused much damage because people believe that much medicine means much benefit. This powder is by no means just an aphrodisiacum; it but leads to a man’s longer-lasting erection and also to a swelling of the woman’s parts. Many well-to-do men had been hauled to my house whose erection had changed into a veritable priapism, which I could help only with the assistance of a barber-surgeon and his sharp lancet. If one waits too long, the member can get gangrenous and fall off completely. But if the surgeon steps in in time, the patient can be healed, often though without ever suffering from an erection again.

  The electoress gave the apothecary numerous orders, which the amanuensis noted down carefully.

  If you look today, as I am writing this, into the apothecaries in Dresden and elsewhere in the electorate, you begin to feel better as soon as you enter, and you are inclined to forget about your illness. The assistants are friendly and knowledgeable about pharmacy and the manufacture of medicaments. On the shelves you find cleanly labeled pots, boxes, and flasks; from the ceiling hang leather bags with spices as well as bundles of herbs, dried or fresh, the season allowing.

  On the large table you can see the orderly arrayed spoons, mortars, spatulas, sieves, and all instruments needed for the making of medicines. On the left, perhaps, you will find a counter for the sale and a desk for bookkeeping; on the right there is space for all devices, distillators, barrels, glasses, alembics, cooling hoods, and ovens with several openings, all of them needed for the preparation of medicaments and also for alchemy, as well as a hearth for the preparation of decoctions, the thickening of juices, and the manufacturing of electuaries.

  A special place is reserved for the awe-inspiring Tabula smaragdina, or Emerald Tablet, or rather a copy of it in the form of a book fixed to the table by a chain. The original was found by Abraham’s wife Sarah in the grave of Hermes Trismegistos, the god of, among others, alchemy and astronomy. In it you can read in mysterious words how microcosm emerged from macrocosm and how knowledge of this process is the key to many riddles of nature.

  Thanks to the efforts of Electoress Anna and myself, the authorities now control the apothecaries and their keepers. The books are checked, the medicaments are reviewed for their age, the general cleanliness of the laboratory is observed, and the honesty with regard to prices is paid attention to.

  The number of people who fall ill or die after taking the medicines prescribed by the physicians and sold by the apothecaries has declined greatly.

  Later, in AD 1581, the elector ordered the court apothecary to be built at the Taschenberg Hill as well as a test house, which served as the laboratory for the court alchemists. I could make use of both of them, being allowed to experiment, distill, rectify, and calcinate in the pharmacy and carry out my alchemical experiments in the test house.

  Chapter 24

  . . . deals with gold.

  It has been stated that I was on good terms with the electoress, and I hoped it would be even better with the elector. But I have to say, both of them made it a policy to associate with the sort of people who did not make it easy to exhibit the best qualities of my character. This was especially true in religious matters. Instead, they reinforced my inclination to say what others wanted to hear. And in this I developed considerable skill. In short, in some situations and affairs I had to hide my true feelings and act against my conscience in order to protect myself and my family from the intrigues of the electoral court and the duplicity of state policy.

  But first I am going to record how the elector, with my assistance, planned to become rich and powerful. Or still richer and more powerful. Richer and more powerful through the art of gold making. The experiments required for this he and I carried out until his death in AD 1586.

  The reader should understand that since my time at the university, I have been intrigued with the idea of making gold. And even though I have long had doubts about the possibility of accomplishing it, my hopes in the end prevailed, and of course I attempted it.

  One morning in the spring of my second year in Dresden, when I was already well installed and sufficiently provided with money, the elector summoned me to the castle. I was led into his cabinet, in which a table was laid with cold roast venison, white bread, and red wine.

  We were alone in the room, when the following talk took place.

  The elector: “It is early in the day, but I think it does no harm to have roast, wine, and bread for breakfast.”

  As I did not utter any medical reservations, the elector helped himself and asked me to follow his example. I had had breakfast at home with my wife, but to keep my master company, I also took a bite. But I asked for permission to have water instead of wine because I wanted, I told my host, to keep a clear head in view of the disclosures to be expected from the princely mouth. This the elector accepted with benevolence. Before helping himself to the roast, he took a large gulp from a golden chalice encrusted with jewels. I had for a drinking vessel a tall glass. The sun had barely risen; its first rays shone through the leaded glass window and caused the chalice to sparkle.

  His Grace continued: “Dr. Luther, when you were still in Gotha on the Grimmenstein, for which, as you know, I don’t bear you any enmity but rather take it as a sign of faithfulness toward the House of Wettin, you heard of my experiments here in Dresden to make gold. I was encouraged by the adepts who promised me quick success, but except for causing expenses, they have made little progress. Therefore, I had them all deported. A number of them went to other courts, where some of them are still cheating their new rulers. One of them, though, who lied too impertinently and asked for always more gold instead of making it, I had to have arrested at Königstein Castle, where he now sits, a bit wet but well deserved, or rather stands upright, because he is chained to the wall and has much time to think about his art.

  “Now tell me what you think of the doubts that can be heard among the people and even at my court about the art of making gold. My police tell me that even among the poor people in the inns and at the markets it is rumored that instead of spending money on making gold, a sovereign should rather give it to the poor. And well-to-do citizens say I should instead lower taxes.”

  Me: “I believe in principle that it is possible to make gold in the laboratory. But you need a small amount of gold as a starting substance.” Here I saw the elector knit his brow, so I continued quickly: “One needs some, a small amount of, gold, which I could myself provide for the purpose of the experiment and so would not burden Your Grace’s treasury.”

  The elector: “Dr. Luther, you are a man to my liking. And the first to offer such a pleasant prospect.”

  Me: “Of course, this does not mean that my—or, may I say, Your Electoral Grace, our”—here he nodded gracefully—“experiments will not cost anything. Costs will arise for laboratories, instruments, gadgets, tools, assistants, running costs of the process, heating materials, also literature about gold making. All this is not to be had cheaply. Moreover, an officer of Your Grace’s lifeguard with a detail of soldiers should be in place to watch the laboratory day and night.”

  His Grace: “This can be afforded, and in comparison to what the former gold makers demanded, it sounds inexpensive.”

  Me: “Now, I would like to tell Your Grace something about my basic philosophy and beg to appraise it or have it appraised.”

  His Grace: “Speak up. You know that I have occupied myself for quite a time with the problem and without boasting can say I have some knowledge in alchemy. Trust that I can follow your explanations.

  “But first of all, I want you to answer the following question and thus check on the legitimacy, as it were, of our plans before God. It is not the first
time that I put this question to myself and others. Now I hope to receive a satisfying answer from such a famous scholar as you and, moreover, from the son of an even more famous father. The question is: Does man not interfere in a forbidden way with God’s creation when he so basically changes substances created by Him?”

  When the elector said this, it began to dawn on me for the first time what kind of faith he adhered to. He was on the way to strict Lutheranism, which, as we know, is connected to permanent and deep self-examination of oneself but above all of others. I knew to proceed with caution. I still remembered my arguments with the zealots in Jena.

  I answered: “Your Grace can rest assured. I believe God has gifted us with logic and thinking in order to work for His praise and to replenish the earth and subdue it, which also means to be allowed to further develop God’s creation. Your Grace may only think of the many fields in which man has changed nature—how he breeds animals to his good use, changes the field crops that they bear more fruit, picks ore, diverts rivers, irrigates deserts, drains swamps, and, to mention an example from my field of knowledge, even looks man, the lord of the creation, God’s image, into the head and there drains blood or water.”

  And then I added, “My Herr Father has always praised reason and its use as a gift of God.”

  To be honest, I could not remember if Father had really said so, but it seemed to fit into our conversation, and it seemed to allay the elector’s fears, and he indicated I should go on.

  I said, “Logic and reason as well as the teachings of many scholars of old—and with this I am coming to my philosophy of gold making—tell us that God created the world in the form of a primary matter, the materia prima of Aristotle, which has transmuted since the day of creation to today’s manifold forms and substances. This has happened over thousands of years, in the hottest processes in the inner earth, in the volcanoes, in the hot springs, in the celestial bodies. Also, the influence of the orbits of the stars, their positions to each other and to the earth, must be considered when one looks into the transmutation of the substances.”