Schultheisz Emil: Traditio Renovata. Tanulmányok a középkor és a reneszánsz orvostudományáról / Orvostörténeti Közlemények – Supplementum 21. (Budapest, 1997)

20. The contacts of the two Dees and Sir Philip Sidney with Hungarian physicians

Z^oo¡ physician to Moscow. The choice fell upon Arthur Dee, who appeared on a visit of introduction before the Tsar on 8 September 1621. The activity of Arthur Dee—known in Russia as Artemii Ivanovich Dii

—in the Tsars court is outside the scope of our paper, since N. A. Figurovski treated this topic in his work in detail. It is, however, worth while to dwell a little longer on Dee's work released in Paris in 1631 under the title "Fasciculus Chemicus". Regarding this work we are of the opinion that the strictly alchemist part of the text can be traced back in the last analysis to the "Corpus Alchimisticum", which is a collection of Egyptian and ancient Greek alchemist manuscripts compiled similarly to the "Corpus Hippocraticum". It originates from the 7th—8th centuries. Several variants of the same collection are known from the 9th century onwards. The oldest manuscript-collection was written by a Byzantine alchemist, named Theodorøs. The manuscript came into the hands of Cardinal Bessarion who donated it to the Venetian Republic in 1463. Today it can be found in the San Marco Library in Venice. A 15th century copy of this Greek Marçianųs Codex is kept at the library of Kassel. The manuscript has a fascinating history: in April 1567 John Dee bought the so-called Oxford alchemist manuscripts from Jean Baptist Hardeñçøųrt, as is testified by the note made on the first page of the codex which reads: "Johannes Dee hunc librum Mor açl in aedibus meis emi a Jo. Baptista Härđeneųrñ pro sexaginta Angelotis aureis qui valent monetae nostrae Anglicae libras triginta sterlingenses. 4. April 1567." This copy which includes the most important parts of the "Corpus Alchimisticum" was later donated by Dee to Landgrave Maurice of Hessen an ardent supporter of alchemy. Nearly all the pages of the manuscript display detailed marginal notes by John Dee who must have studied the manuscript intensively.

2

1 The "Fasciculus Chemicus" is actually an excerpt from the "Corpus Alchimisticum" and thus one of the most important secondary sources of the history of alchemy. It is hard to determine the exact place of the "Fasciculus Chemicus" in the history of alchemy. Many of the alchemists abandoned the retort and the melting-pot and turned fully to hermetic philosophy. This was the time when the chemist detached himself from the Hermetist. Chemistry became a natural science. Hermetism, however, lost its empirical ground and even its logical basis, and indulged in speculation, pouring forth shallow allegories. Let us refer here to C. Gustav Jung who plains this trend of alchemy in several of his studies.

2

2 According to these, the imagined property of matter is not necessarily its inherent quality but "derives from the soul of the alchemist". All that is unknown or empty is filled with psychological projection. The properties which the alchemist supposes to see or recognize in matter are his ownmostly subconscious—projections. Even if Jung's views are in certain respects disputable, they help us to a psychological understanding of the late period of alchemy. Apart from empiric chemical statements Arthur Dee's work abounds also in mystic pseudo-philosophycal theories. However, one must not by any means conclude from the above facts that also as a doctor Arthur Dee was nothing but a phantast. The history of science proves that even excellent clinicians like Van Heimoñ , Stahl or the noted obstetrician from Vienna, Crato von Craftheim, were inclined towards irrational thinking. We also know of the latter that he was a practising alchemist. There are quite a number of similar examples. 2

1 Goldschmidt, G.: Zur Sichtung und Erforschung der alchemistischen Handschriften Bas, 1938. Cfr. Schultheisz, E.—

Tardy L.: A két Dee és Magyarország (The two Dees and Hungary). Orvosi Hetilap, 1967, 1566. 2

2 Cfr, Jung, C. G.: Psychologie und Alchemie. Zürich, 1940; furthermore: Mysterium Coniunctionis Untersuchung über die Trennung und Zusammensetzung der seelischen Gegensätze in der Alchemie. Zürich, 1955.