Waterbury evening Democrat., 1889-09-05
El,IXIRS OF ALI TIMES.
How Men Have Alwcys Sought
 to Seize Immortality.

How Men Have Alwcys Sought
 to Seize Immortality.
 Tho Notorious Cagliostro and His Youth.
 Preserving Mixture-Poncc de Lcon's
 Historic Search for the Fountain
 of Eternal Youth.
 Dr. Brown -Sequard has in the course of ages had several predecessors in the same fascinating school of research, says the New York Mail and Express. Not all of the men who, in the course of time, have claimed to discover conservator of youth have been as honest in their work as he. The notorious Count Cagliostro, whose name is still synonymous with fraud, was enabled to carry on his swindles by pre- tending, among other things, that he had discovered an ''elixir of immo ortal youth'
 Cagliostro, who flourished in the latter part of the eighteenth century, did lively business in the "ellxir" that was especially popular with the ladies. Cagliostro assured his dupes that by virtue ot the specific he had already attained his 150th year, and his charming wife, his accomplice in the swindle, often talked affectionatcly of her son as an 'off1cer in the Dutch navy"
 He and his wife conducted a triumphant tour through Europe until they struck the court of St. Petersburg, where the Empress Catharine and her Scotch physician, Roger son, who were skeptical concerning elixirs, saw through their deception and they dis appeared. They came up again in another | part of Europe, and carried on their scheme | of fraud with varying success until Cagl- ostro was put in jail in Rome for Free Masonry. In spite of the virtues of his ''elixir of immortal youth," he died in the l fortress of San Leone, in his ffty-second l year. His wife ended her days in 9 con- vent
 | Albertus Magnus, who was born in the latter part of the twelfth century, gained so extensive knowledge of chemistry that l he was commonly reputed to be a sorcerer, | and many legends of wonder have como l down attached to his name.
 l Roger Bacon, who was one of the earliest 1 scientific inquirers in the realm of the mys- | terious, flourished in the thirteenth century, l though his mind was so remarkably able l and his munitions so clear that he is re- garded as having lived tour centuries be- fore his time. He was for all practical pur- | poses modern thinker, whose conception Of 1 science was Just and clear He completed his studies at Oxford, though very little is known of his life there. He went over to Paris and took the degree of doctor of the ology, and in 125O was back in Oxford He l was 1ul O1 VIII duu dSSICoSlSO III SOACA V 1 Versy. Of course he got into trouble on account of his books, and spent fourteen l years in prison. He wrote an enormous l number of works, though his best-known was his "Opus Majus.'
 He was a firm believer in astroIogy and the philosophers stone, and IS reported to l have said that he knew the circle had been
 squared.
 Paracelsus was another mysterious of% r, ho Nyyiti O m l groped in the gloomy chambers Of knoWl- edge, and, of course, often went astray. He gave up all the studies of the schools and
 set out through the world, travelling like a iourneyman scholar, and studying as he said from nature herself. He spent years studying all the phenomena of mines and the diseases that affected miners. Of course,
 he acquired a good deal of knowledge that
 other people did not possess, and his belief
 in himself was so complete that by sheer
 force of self confidence he forced others tc
 listen and have faith in him.
 | He had his own theories concerning the
 makeup and the moods of nature. His 1 eagerness to understand the rel atlonship o1 l man to the universe led him to the Kabbal
 la where these mysteries, as he thought
 are explained, and from these unsubstantia
 materials he constructed visionary
 philosophy.
 |
 founded on fact, his Kabba!istic doctrines
 led him to trace the dependence of tho hu-
 man body upon outer nature for it's susten
 ance and cure. The doctrine of signatures
 the connection of every part of tho little
 world of man with corresponding part o1
 the great world of nature, was painful
 and false exaggeration of this doctrine, bu,
 the idea carried In it's train that of specifies l Paracelsus had seen how bodies were puri Gol S~+o tod h1yC io01 and he thought if plants end minerals could
 be made to yield their active principles i
 would surely bo better to employ these than tho crude and unprepared originals
 He had, besides, by some kind of intuition
 arrived st the conclusion that the operations
 of the body were Of chemical charac , ter, and that when disordered the, were to be put right by counter opposition of the same kind. Technically he was no a chemist. He did not concern himself either, with the composition of his com pounds or with an explanation of what oc cured In their making. If he could ge potent drugs to cuce disease he was con ], tent, and he worked very hard in an em i pirical way to make them. He was prob > ably a believer, tco, in tho philosophers , stone, the fetish Of bis ege.
 , Ponce de Leon, though he was no chemist :. had an abiding faith that an elixir of you'll flowed in Q fountain somewhere ID tn 7 world. He became convinced at one tim / that the well was situated in the newly dis . covered land of America, and came ou : here to seek it. He didn't find the fountain ' but ho did discover Florida, tho land o :, flowers. He kept up his search for tn fountain of happy immortality until h. , died, when it is to be hoped he found it. 5 From his day to this there have beel
 scores of people cs earnest as he in thei
 belief h the existence of an elixir of life
 Some of them simple scarchers in the worl
 of affairs and others grave savants delvinI ! into the depths of scientific knowledge. Tho Influence of Surroundings.
 How dependent we gre on the atmospher ] about us: yet how little thought we give t our indebtedness to the atmosphere! Lif
 or death Is in the air we breathe; bu ? 1 1xhather it ts life or death is not nrdinaril