Alchemomedizinische Briefe, 1585 bis 1597 (review)

“I remain in my love to you and will do so for as long as I live. You will also communicate to me whether Messinus has sent you the promised [alchemical] powder” (p. 78). So wrote the physician and Paracelsian alchemist Oswald Croll on 8 March 1595 to Franz Kretschmer, the physician and Bergmeister to the Margrave of Brandenburg-Ansbach. The combination of feverish passion and hard-headed practicality displayed in this passage is characteristic of the twenty-six letters included in this volume of original texts accompanied by German translations.

In 1585, at the time of writing the first letter in the volume, Croll (ca. 1560–1608) was not yet the famed Paracelsian author of Basilica chymica (1609), nor the alchemical and diplomatic advisor to Peter Wok von Rosenberg. Rather, the volume opens on his efforts to win recognition and favor within the republic of letters. We find him writing newsy and elegant letters from Paris to the established Strasbourg professor of medicine, Melchior Sebiz, to a Frankfurt Stadtphysikus, and to the professor of greek and medicine in Basel, Caspar Bauhin. In none of these letters did Croll discuss his chemical activities; rather, he exchanged news and pleasantries. Only beginning in 1591, with his letters to the important French Paracelsian Joseph Duchesne, and above all in his correspondence with Franz Kretschmer and the alchemical laboranten N. N. in Lyon and P. L. Messinus in Bavaria, do we get a sense of Croll’s alchemical mission. To them he lamented his constant travel in his position as “miserable praeceptor” and envoy to the family of the Count von Pappenheim, and he clearly relied upon these correspondents to carry out and inform him about trials in the laboratory. Croll and his alchemical partners were interested primarily in the great work of transmutation, and secondarily in finding the universal elixir. In addition, Croll always remained on the lookout for medical remedies. Nowhere in these letters is there discussion of theories not immediately grounded in and relevant to material experimentation. Paracelsian concepts, such as the light of nature and grace, which appear so frequently in Croll’s published writings, are wholly absent in this correspondence. Rather, these letters show him as an able laborant, engaged, along with a great many other men trained in medicine, in a concrete practice of alchemical experimentation. This network of Adepti spanned Europe and generated a lively exchange of recipes, materials, and manuscripts—as well as rumor about who had achieved the great work, and constantly repeated admonitions to hold all in the deepest secrecy.

This well-translated and extensively annotated volume demonstrates the exchange of knowledge, practices, and ways of thought that eventually would help form the methods of the new science. It hints as well at the connections between Paracelsian medico-alchemical practice and the search for an ecumenical solution to the rift in Christendom. Finally, it illustrates wonderfully the epistolary culture of early modern Europe. These correspondents seldom met in person and so attempted to convey on paper a whole persona and life (perhaps comparable to the virtual reality correspondence of the Internet today). The passion and peevishness in these affairs of humanist friendship also come through clearly. As Croll ends one letter, “If you love me, make an effort to write me more often” (p. 82).