Learning to Prolong Life

Allen, Meagan S.

doi:10.1007/978-3-031-12898-1_3

Meagan S. Allen⁴

Part of the book series: Palgrave Studies in Medieval and Early Modern Medicine ((PSMEMM))

142 Accesses

Abstract

In this chapter, I outline the various areas of knowledge that Bacon believed provided insight into prolonging human life. I begin with the medical field, which Bacon felt was sound in theory, but lacking in practice. According to Bacon, there were many problems with how medicine was taught and practiced, which led to the inability of doctors to cure their patients. I show that Bacon was particularly worried about the lack of experimentation and experience, resulting in a multitude of errors in the medical knowledge passed down from one generation to another. After surveying the sciences ancillary to medicine, I demonstrate how Bacon believed that alchemy was the key to reforming medical practice and theory.

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this chapter

Log in via an institution

Chapter: USD 29.95; Price excludes VAT (USA)

eBook: USD 109.00; Price excludes VAT (USA)

Softcover Book: USD 139.99; Price excludes VAT (USA)

Hardcover Book: USD 139.99; Price excludes VAT (USA)

Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout

Purchases are for personal use only

Institutional subscriptions

Notes

1.
Roger Bacon, “Communia naturalium.” in Opera hactenus inedita Rogeri Baconi, Fasc. II-IV. Communium Naturalium Fratris Rogeri, edited by Robert Steele (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1911). 129.
2.
Bacon, De erroribus medicorum, 150–79 (Chapters 1–58, 26–54).
3.
Bacon, Secretum secretorum, 64; and Bacon, Liber sex scientiarum, 182.
4.
Bacon, De erroribus medicorum, 167 (Chapter 34, 43).
5.
Bacon, De erroribus medicorum, 167 (Chapter 34, 43).
6.
Bacon, De erroribus medicorum, 167 (Chapter 34, 43–44).
7.
Bacon, De erroribus medicorum, 153 (Chapter 8, 29).
8.
Bacon, Antidotarius, 117.
9.
Bacon, De erroribus medicorum, 150–79 (Chapters 1–58, 26–54) and Bacon, Antidotarius, 110.
10.
Bacon, De erroribus medicorum, 152 (Chapter 6, 28–29) and 166 (Chapter 32, 42).
11.
Bacon, De erroribus medicorum, 166 (Chapter 32, 42).
12.
Bacon, De erroribus medicorum, 152 (Chapter 7, 29) and 166–7 (Chapter 33, 43).
13.
Bacon, De erroribus medicorum, 151–2 (Chapter 4, 28, etc.).
14.
Bacon, De erroribus medicorum, 152 (Chapter 5, 28).
15.
Bacon, Antidotarius, 110.
16.
Bacon, De erroribus medicorum, 165 (Chapter 31, 41).
17.
Paula De Vos, “The ‘Prince of Medicine’: Yuhanna ibn Masawyh and the Foundations of the Western Pharmaceutical Tradition.” Isis 104:4 (December 2013): 667–712. John Mesue was the author of three pharmaceutical treatises: De simplicibus, a book of simples that had medical properties; the Grabadin (from which the genre got its name), a book of compound medicines; and the Canones universales, a general set of rules on how to prepare purgatives and apply them correctly. Together, all three were known as the Opera medicinalia. Though all were important, the Canones and the Grabadin were the most important and played a significant role in developing early modern European pharmacology. The earliest extant manuscript of Mesue’s works dates to 1281 and appeared in northern Italy. Additionally, there are no extant copies of any Arabic originals (if they ever existed).
18.
Walton Schalick, quoted in De Vos, “The ‘Prince of Medicine”, 687.
19.
De Vos, “The ‘Prince of Medicine”, 705–6.
20.
De Vos, “The ‘Prince of Medicine”, 710; Bacon, De erroribus medicorum, 165 (Chapter 31, 41).
21.
Bacon, De erroribus medicorum, 152 (Chapter 5, 28) and 166–7 (Chapter 33, 43). Bacon explicitly argued against the theory in which the shortening of human life was attributed to negative movement in the heavens: that is, the heavenly bodies were in the best position at the start of creation, but had since moved to malevolent positions, thus decreasing the length of human life. Bacon said this theory is popular, but it is wrong.
22.
Bacon, Antidotarius, 108.
23.
Bacon, De erroribus medicorum, 150 (Chapter 1, 26).
24.
Bacon, De erroribus medicorum, 150 (Chapter 1, 26).
25.
Bacon, De erroribus medicorum, 163–4 (Chapter 28, 40).
26.
McVaugh, Medicine before the Plague, 117.
27.
De Vos, “The ‘Prince of Medicine”, 687.
28.
Ziegler, Medicine and Religion, 19.
29.
Bacon, Opus maius, Part 6, 204 (617).
30.
Demaitre, “The Care and Extension of Old Age,” 4.
31.
Bacon, De erroribus medicorum, 164 (Chapter 29, 40) and 150–1 (Chapter 2, 26–27).
32.
Bacon, De erroribus medicorum, 162–3 (Chapters 26–27, 39–40).
33.
Bacon, Opus maius, Part 6, 204 (617).
34.
Bacon, Opus maius, Part 6, 206–7 (620).
35.
Bacon, Compendium studii philosophiae, Chapter 8, 162–5. Disagreement regarding medical practice was not original to the Middle Ages. Even by the time of Galen, there were a number of medical schools, each stressing different components of medicine and with different approaches to theory and practice. Some of the most popular schools in late antiquity were the Rationalists, Empiricists, and Methodists. For more on the history of medical sects, see Garcia-Ballester, Galen and Galenism, 29–31; and Nancy G. Siraisi, Medieval and Early Renaissance Medicine: An Introduction to Knowledge and Practice (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1990).
36.
Bacon, De erroribus medicorum, 151 (Chapter 3, 27). Specifically, it purged red choler. However, Bacon seems to use the terms “choler” and “red choler” interchangeably in De erroribus medicorum.
37.
Bacon, De erroribus medicorum, 151 (Chapter 3, 27).
38.
Bacon, De erroribus medicorum, 171 (Chapter 41, 47).
39.
Bacon, De erroribus medicorum, 161–2 (Chapter 24, 37–38).
40.
Bacon, De erroribus medicorum, 154 (Chapter 13, 30–31).
41.
Danielle Jacquart, “Islamic Pharmacology in the Middle Ages: Theories and Substances,” European Review 16:2 (2008): 219–227; and Crisciani, “History, Novelty, and Progress,” 135. So far, these problems have all highlighted inconsistencies between different doctors, but what happened when one individual wrote contrary statements? There is one glaring inconsistency in Bacon’s work on the prolongatio vitae: where to place (pseudo) Aristotle and his writings. I say (pseudo) Aristotle, for Bacon was reading a mix of genuine Aristotelian works, as well as those that had been spuriously attributed to him after his death. Their actual authenticity is irrelevant, however, for Bacon believed that all of these works, especially the Secretum secretorum, were genuine. In the Secretum secretorum, Aristotle understood how to prolong life, even giving Alexander the recipe for the gloria inestimabilis. But in the works Bacon wrote himself, such as the Opus maius, Aristotle was ignorant of the principles of the prolongatio vitae. In fact, in Bacon’s section on experimental science in the Opus maius, Aristotle was simultaneously ignorant and wise. Defending the idea that it is difficult to prolong life, and so while possible, not many individuals have been able to accomplish it, Bacon wrote: “It is not strange that people like Aristotle did not live so long, because they were ignorant of things far simpler than this. Medicine cannot give us these things, nor does it mention them; but the greatness of the secret belonging to experimental science of this kind has proved them. These remedies are discovered in Aristotle’s Secretum secretorum, the philosophy of Artephius, the book on the conditions of old age, and the treatise on the regimen.” How can these apparent inconsistencies be reconciled? One answer could be that Bacon was aware that the Secretum secretorum was not a genuine work of Aristotle’s. But at no point in his oeuvre did Bacon hint that he was aware of this. Another option is that this was just one of the incongruencies in Bacon’s writings. This is not a particularly charitable explanation, nor does it explain why these contradictory statements about Aristotle appeared in the same passage. It likewise cannot be explained by any changing ideas Bacon had about the relative importance of Aristotle throughout his career. Instead, it is more likely that Bacon saw a difference between knowing and performing. That is, Aristotle knew in theory how to create a medicine that would extend human life, but was not able to make it. See Bacon, Opus maius, Part 6, 213 (625).
42.
Bacon, Secretum secretorum, 59–60.
43.
Bacon, Antidotarius, 113.
44.
Bacon, Compendium studii philosophiae, Chapter 8, 162–3.
45.
Bacon, Opus maius, various. Bacon’s criticism of translations is not unique to medicine. He criticized the poor translations in many fields, especially that of scripture. In the case of the Bible, bad translations led to heresy. For more on Bacon and the deficiencies of translations, see Hackett, “Roger Bacon,” 95; and Faye Marie Getz, “Charity, Translation, and the Language of Medical Learning in Medieval England,” Bulletin of the History of Medicine 64:1 (Spring 1990): 1–17.
46.
Bacon, Secretum secretorum, 23.
47.
In the Aristotelian sense, motion was not just a change of place, but included other kinds of change. This is not a sudden change, but rather a transition that requires a number of successive steps. When there is an instant transition, this is considered a mutatio, and is not strictly the same as motion. See Anneliese Maier, On the Threshold of Exact Science: Selected Writings of Anneliese Maier on Late Medieval Natural Philosophy, edited by Steven D. Sargent (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1982), 21–3; Richard Lemay, “The Teaching of Astronomy in Medieval Universities, Principally at Paris in the Fourteenth Century.” In Science, Medicine, and the University: Essays in Honor of Pearl Kibre. Part I, edited by Nancy Sirasi and Luke Demaitre. Manuscripta 20:2 (July 1976): 197–217.
48.
Nicolas Weill-Parot, “Astrology, Astral Influences, and Occult Properties in the 13th and 14th Centuries.” Traditio 65 (2010): 201–230.
49.
Liana Saif, The Arabic Influences on Early Modern Occult Philosophy (Palgrave Macmillan, 2015). The four Aristotelian types of cause were material, formal, final, and efficient. See Maier, On the Threshold of Exact Science, 41.
50.
Aristotle held that there were four categories of motion: substance, quantity, quality, and place. Generation and corruption fall into the first category. Maier, On the Threshold of Exact Science, 22.
51.
Matus, Franciscans and the Elixir of Life, Chapter 2; and Ziegler, Medicine and Religion, Chapter 2.
52.
Michael McVaugh, “Bedside Manners in the Middle Ages,” Bulletin of the History of Medicine 71:2 (Summer 1997): 201–223.
53.
Bacon, Secretum secretorum, 193. Hackett argues that these divisions map onto Bacon’s division of the sciences into practical and speculative. See Jeremiah Hackett, “Roger Bacon on Astronomy-Astrology: The Sources of the Scientia Experimentalis,” in Roger Bacon and the Sciences: Commemorative Essays, edited by Jeremiah Hackett. (Leiden: Brill, 1997), 175–197.
54.
Bacon, Opus maius, Part 4, 384 (273/399).
55.
Bacon, De erroribus medicorum, 166 (Chapter 33, 43).
56.
Bacon, De erroribus medicorum, 154 (Chapter 14, 31).
57.
Bacon, Secretum secretorum, 8.
58.
Bacon, De erroribus medicorum, 154 (Chapter 14, 31).
59.
Bacon, Opus maius, Part 4, 384 (399). This is in opposition to the usual view that phlebotomy on a body part was dangerous if the moon was in that body part’s corresponding sign.
60.
Bacon, Liber sex scientiarum, 183.
61.
Bacon, Liber sex scientiarum, 184–5. Cum igitur experimenator magnificus preparaverit hoc corpus equalis complexionis, iubet astronomo ut ortum stellarum virtuosarum super orizonta de futuro consideret et occasum stellarum prave actionis ad illud tempus, et iubet perspectivo ut cum adiutorio geometrie fiant instrumenta congregantia radios in quibus ponatur illud corpus equale, ut, postquam receperit virtutes mirificas stellarum, possit miro modo tollere defectum regiminis vite contractum a iuventute et restaurare totum deperditum et retardare passiones senectutis et cum venerit, eas mitigare feliciter, ut vita mirabiliter prolongetur. Sed non solum hec fieri debent, sed ipsa persona, cuius cura queritur, stare debet in tali concursu virtutum celestium, et sedere sepius ac iacere; et si hec omnia fiant, non est dubium quin accidat quod vita salubris et suavis prolongetur usque ad ultimos terminos quos Deus in quolibet constituit naturales.
62.
Newman, “An Overview of Roger Bacon’s Alchemy,” 327–8. Artephius was able to extend his life to a record 1025 years using this method. For more, see Newman, “The Philosophers’ Egg,” 78–9.
63.
Bacon, Secretum secretorum, 280.
64.
Bacon, Opus maius, Part 4, 386 (401). Bacon’s sources here are Ptolemy, Hali, Galen, and Hippocrates. He also cited Aristotle and Isaac Israeli on the importance of astronomy.
65.
Hackett, “Roger Bacon,” 98. For more on the role of mathematics in Bacon’s natural philosophy, see David C. Lindberg, “On the Applicability of Mathematics to Nature: Roger Bacon and His Predecessors,” British Journal for the History of Science 15 (1982): 3–25.
66.
Bacon, De erroribus medicorum, 158 (Chapter 19, 34–35).
67.
Bacon, De erroribus medicorum, 158 (Chapter 19, 34–35); and Bacon, De erroribus medicorum, 153–4 (Chapter 11, 30).
68.
In the Communia naturalium, Bacon explained that there are seven special sciences: perspectiva, astronomy (both judicial and operative), the science of weights, alchemy, agriculture, medicine, and experimental science. Bacon, Communia naturalium, 5.
69.
Bacon, Opus maius, Part 5, 164 (580).
70.
Bacon, Opus maius, Part 6, 204 (617).
71.
Bacon, De erroribus medicorum, 155 (Chapter 15, 31–32). It is interesting to note that Bacon changed the importance of alchemy relative to other sciences in De erroribus medicorum. In Chapter 36, Bacon said that there are three sciences that are important to medicine. Ordered from least to most important, they are: alchemy, astronomy, and “a third” [likely experimental science]. But in chapters 15 and 17 of the same work, he implied that alchemy is the most important science for doctors to understand.
72.
Bacon, Opus tertium, Chapter 12, 80–4.
73.
Bacon, Opus tertium, Chapter 111, 946–50.
74.
Bacon, Opus tertium, Chapter 12, 82–4. Newman breaks the second into two: purifying “orthodox medicaments” and producing the body of equal complexion. See Newman, “The Alchemy of Roger Bacon,” 470.
75.
Newman, “An Overview of Roger Bacon’s Alchemy,” 319.
76.
Newman, “The Philosophers’ Egg,” 76. Alchemy’s utility makes it more important than sciences like optics and geometry.
77.
The history of dividing sciences into practical and speculative parts is covered later.
78.
Brewer, Opera Quaedam Hactenus Inedita, Vol. I, lxxx.
79.
Bacon, De erroribus medicorum, 159–60 (Chapter 22, 36–37). A number of scholars have noted the link between speculative alchemy and the generation of things in Bacon’s works, and how this relates to medicine. See Sir John Edwin Sandys, “Roger Bacon,” Proceedings of the British Academy (1913–1914); Newman, “An Overview of Roger Bacon’s Alchemy,” 318; Wilfred Theissen, “The Attraction of Alchemy for Monks and Friars in the 13th–14th Centuries,” American Benedictine Review 46:3 (1995): 239–253; Matus, Franciscans and the Elixir of Life, Chapter 2; John Henry Bridges. The Life and Work of Roger Bacon (London: Williams and Norgate, 1914); Robert Steele, “Roger Bacon and the State of Science in the Thirteenth Century.” In Studies in the History and Method of Science, edited by Charles Singer (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1921), 121–150.
80.
Bacon, De erroribus medicorum, 159–60 (Chapter 22, 36).
81.
Bacon, De erroribus medicorum, 159–60 (Chapter 22, 36).
82.
Bacon, De erroribus medicorum, 160 (Chapter 22, 37).
83.
Bacon, De erroribus medicorum, 156–7 (Chapter 17, 33).
84.
Bacon, De erroribus medicorum, 160 (Chapter 22, 37); Bacon, Opus minus, 359; Bacon, Opus tertium, Chapter 111, 946–50; and Bacon, Communia naturalium, 6–7.
85.
Bacon, Opus tertium, Chapter 111, 946–50.
86.
Bacon, Opus maius, Part 6, 211–2 (624).
87.
Bacon, Liber sex scientiarum, 184. See also Newman, “The Philosophers’ Egg,” 77–8. The fruit of the Tree of Life in the Garden of Eden also had an equal complexion, and would have sustained Adam’s body forever, had he not been expelled. For more, see Allen “Roger Bacon’s Medical Alchemy,” 164; and Bacon, Opus minus, 359.
88.
Bacon, Opus tertium, Chapter 111, 946–50.
89.
Moureau, “Elixir atque fermentum,” 277–325. De anima was one of the most important alchemical sources for Bacon, and he may have been the author of a summary of the work, Liber Avicennae de anima, id est de maiori alchimia. De anima is also known as De anima in arte alchemiae, and is a compilation and Latin translation of three lost Arabic works, made between 1226 and 1235. The theory in De anima is the same as in the Jabirian corpus, but was mistakenly attributed to Avicenna. It is important in the history of alchemy, not just for its influence on Bacon, but because it is one of the treatises that best represents the organic approach to alchemy (i.e. the use of animal materials in transmutational alchemy). See also Allen, “Roger Bacon’s Medical Alchemy,” 164.
90.
Moureau, “Elixir atque fermentum,” 301.
91.
Moureau, “Elixir atque fermentum,” 322.
92.
Moureau, “Elixir atque fermentum,” 319.
93.
Kaye, A History of Balance, 145.
94.
Lawrence M. Principe, The Secrets of Alchemy (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2013). See also Sébastien Moureau, “Some Considerations Concerning the Alchemy of the De anima in arte alchemiae of Pseudo-Avicenna.” Ambix 56:1 (2009): 49–56. If each element is composed of two qualities, and all things are composed of the four elements, then a person who knows the proportion of elements in a substance is able to calculate the proportions of the qualities. There are 145 of these proportions, called diversitates.
95.
Ironically, though the metallic elixir theory influenced Bacon’s medicine, the elixir theory itself was derived from Greek medical theory. See Moureau, “Elixir atque fermentum,” 297.
96.
Moureau, “Elixir atque fermentum,” 291 and 301.
97.
Moureau shows that in De anima, the term “elixir” can refer either to the medicine itself, or to the entire compound of the metallic body, spirit, elements, and ferment. See also Allen, “Roger Bacon’s Medical Alchemy,” 159–174.
98.
Moureau, “Elixir atque fermentum,” 319.
99.
Allen, “Roger Bacon’s Medical Alchemy,” 161.
100.
Bacon, De erroribus medicorum, 155–6 (Chapter 16, 32).
101.
Bacon, De erroribus medicorum, 155–6 (Chapters 15–16, 31–32).
102.
Bacon, De erroribus medicorum, 165 (Chapter 31, 41).
103.
Bacon, De erroribus medicorum, 155–6 (Chapter 16, 32).
104.
Little, De retardatione accidentium senectutis, 17–20.
105.
Bacon, Opus tertium, Chapter 12, 82–4.
106.
Bacon, De erroribus medicorum, 165 (Chapter 31, 41); and Ziegler, Medicine and Religion, 143.
107.
Bacon, De erroribus medicorum, 165 (Chapter 31, 41).
108.
Bacon, De erroribus medicorum, 165 (Chapter 31, 41).
109.
Bacon, De erroribus medicorum, 165 (Chapter 31, 41–42).
110.
Bacon, Opus tertium, Chapter 104, 878.
111.
Bacon, Opus tertium, Chapter 78, 686–8. Quando enim industria rationis humane addit ad virtutem ut eam compleat, plus facit uno die quam natura in centum annis: testis est alkimia, que, preparato alicxir quod est medicina laxativa et transmutativa vel transmutandi metalla vilia in aurum et argentum, facit uno die quod natura sola vix facit in centum annis, ut vult Aristoteles in libro secretorum.
112.
Bacon, Opus tertium, Chapter 104, 876–8. In De erroribus medicorum, Bacon attributed this not to practical alchemy, but to “another science.” See Bacon, De erroribus medicorum, 165 (Chapter 31, 41).
113.
Bacon, Opus tertium, Chapter 112, 952. Accipe igitur lapidem, qui non est lapis; et est in quolibet homine, et in quolibet loco, et in quolibet tempore; et vocatur ovum philosophorum, et terminus ovi. In the Opus minus, Bacon added that this stone is called the “lesser world.” See Bacon, Reg. Lat. 1317, fol. 110r.
114.
Bacon, Reg. Lat. 1317, fol. 110r.
115.
Moureau, “Elixir atque fermentum,” 307. Jabir suggested that human body parts make the best stones, but he did not specifically identify blood as the best.
116.
Newman, “The Philosophers’ Egg,” 82. Bacon, Reg. Lat. 1317, fols. 110r-v.
117.
Moureau, “Elixir atque fermentum,” 314.
118.
Newman, “The Philosophers’ Egg,” 86.
119.
Faye Marie Getz, “To Prolong Life and Promote Health: Baconian Alchemy and Pharmacy in the English Learned Tradition”. In Health, Disease, and Healing in Medieval Culture, edited by Sheila Campbell, Bert Hall, and David Klausner (Palgrave Macmillan, 1992), 141–51. Getz also writes that Bacon was one of the first importers of medical humanism into England from continental Europe, but he did not gain popularity as an alchemical healer until the early modern period: reports of him as an alchemical healer are not well documented in the Middle Ages.
120.
Demaitre, “The Care and Extension of Old Age,” 9 and 21. There were two camps in the Middle Ages regarding the treatment of aging: psychotherapy and pharmacotheraphy. Bacon clearly preferred pharmacotherapy (although he did include bits of psychotherapy in his regimen), but Demaitre argues that this preference for pharmaceuticals was characteristic of all authors who were heavily indebted to Arabic medicine. The pharmaceuticals could then be further broken down into rational and empirical drugs. Bacon listed a few of the latter that he believed may work by sympathetic magic.
121.
Gruman, “A History of Ideas about the Prolongation of Life,” 63.
122.
Gruman, “A History of Ideas about the Prolongation of Life,” 49. Arabic alchemy, often erroneously considered to have imported many ideas from East Asian alchemy into the west, is occasionally thought to be the bridge that connects the Chinese alchemists’ interest in prolonging life with the medieval Europeans’ interest in the same topic. Gruman attributes the rise of prolongevitism in European alchemy with a misinterpretation of Arabic alchemy on the part of medieval writers. He identifies four features of Arabic alchemy that the medieval authors could use to support the idea of the prolongatio vitae: (1) the strong ties between Arabic alchemy and medicine, (2) the idea of an “elixir,” (3) The idea that an elixir can cure “disease,” and (4) the idea that humans have a level of control over the processes of nature. Gruman’s study, is, however, largely outdated. Better discussions of the influence of Arabic alchemy on its medieval European counterpart can be found in works by William Newman and Sébastien Moureau.
123.
Gruman, “A History of Ideas about the Prolongation of Life,” 49.
124.
Bacon, Opus maius, Part 6, 205 (618).
125.
Bacon, Opus maius, Part 4, 359 (376–7).
126.
Bacon, Opus maius, Part 4, 353 (372). The story of the Brahmins came from St. Ambrose.
127.
Bacon did not use the term “experimental” in the modern sense, and instead intended something more like the modern “experience.” Crisciani defines experimentum as “the valid experience of an individual practitioner.” For more on experimentum and progress, see Crisciani, “History, Novelty, and Progress,” 130.
128.
Bacon, Opus maius, Part 6, 204 (617). A similar passage is found in the Opus minus. See Bacon, Opus minus, 374.
129.
For a history of experiment in the Middle Ages, see Lynn Thorndike, “Roger Bacon and Experimental Method in the Middle Ages,” 271–98; William R. Newman, Promethean Ambitions: Alchemy and the Quest to Perfect Nature (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2004); and Principe, The Secrets of Alchemy, Chapters 2–3.
130.
Jeremiah Hackett, “Roger Bacon” in Medieval Philosophers, edited by Jeremiah Hackett (Detroit: Gale Research Inc., 1992), 90–102.
131.
Hackett, “Roger Bacon on Scientia Experimentalis,” 295.
132.
Bacon, Liber sex scientiarum, 183. Et invenerunt per experientiam, qua utuntur bruta, preciosos lapides et herbas mirificas quibus utuntur, quos et quas etiam cum speciebus secretis et cibis et potibus specialibus docent poni in congregatione radiorum stellarum mirifice virtutis, quarum tempus notant per astronomicam considerationem et quorum congregationem faciunt per instrumenta perspective, quibus possunt radii congregari per reflexiones mirabiles et fractiones mirabiliores, ut ad quemcumque locum velimus, sive in mensa sive alibi, ducantur virtutes stellarum, que stellificent cibos et potus et species et medicamina et lapides et herbas, quibus utantur homines digni sanitate perpetua et prolongatione vite, ut reparetur subito defectus regiminis quem contraximus ab infantia, et diu retardentur passiones senectutis.
133.
Bacon, Opus tertium, Chapter 104, 874–6.
134.
Bacon, Liber sex scientiarum, 181.
135.
Bacon, Liber sex scientiarum, 181. In debito regimine corporis et prolongationis vitae ad ultimos terminus naturales, quos Deus constituit et natura, relucet miranda potestas astronomie, alkimie et perspective, et scientiarum experimentalium. The ideas in this passage are repeated throughout Liber sex scientiarum, but especially on 183: “et ideo exogitaverunt autores scientiarum experimentalium, et alkimie, et perspective, astronomie operative, quomodo repararent defectum regiminis sanitatis, quem omnis homo contrahit a nativitate.” (and therefore the authors devised experimental science and alchemy, and perspective, operative astronomy, just to renew the defect of the regimen of health, which all men enter into at birth.
136.
For more, see Moureau, “Elixir atque fermentum,” 319; and Chiara Crisciani and Michela Pereira. L’Arte del Sole e della Luna: Alchimia e filosofia nel medioevo (Spoleto, 1996).
137.
Paravicini Bagliani, “The Prolongation of Life and Its Limits,” 140.
138.
Bacon, Opus maius, Part 4, 372 (387).
139.
Bacon is borrowing directly from Isidore of Seville (d. 636 CE).
140.
Bacon, Opus maius, Part 2, 48 (56).
141.
For more on the history of experiment and testing in pharmacology, see Elaine Leong and Alisha Rankin, “Testing Drugs and Trying Cures: Experiment and Medicine in Medieval and Early Modern Europe,” Bulletin of the History of Medicine 91:2 (Summer 2017): 157–182. Leong and Rankin argue that medicine, especially pharmacy, has always been considered an “experiential art,” and that pharmacy was “empirically oriented.”
142.
Jacquart, “Islamic Pharmacology in the Middle Ages”, 223.
143.
Michael McVaugh, “Determining a Drug’s Properties: Medieval Experimental Protocols,” Bulletin of the History of Medicine 91:2 (2017): 183–209.
144.
Bacon, De erroribus medicorum, 160–1 (Chapter 23, 37).
145.
Bacon, Secretum secretorum, 105.
146.
Bacon, Opus tertium, Chapter 13, 88–90.
147.
Bacon, Opus tertium, Chapter 13, 88–90.
148.
Bacon, Antidotarius, 117. Et quicunque hoc capitulum intellexerit et proprietates et operationes rerum simplicium sciverit et egritudinum species cognoverit, ad cognitionem harum rerum perveniet, scilicet omnem compositam sciet facere medicinam et male compositam ex imperitia componentis corrigere et emendare, et errorem ponderis accidentem propter antiquitatem temporis vel diversas translationes per intelligentiam istius nostri revelati capituli emendabit.
149.
Bacon, De erroribus medicorum, 151 (Chapter 3, 27).
150.
Bacon, Opus minus, 313–5.
151.
Bacon, De erroribus medicorum, 177 (Chapter 64, 53).
152.
Bacon, Reg. Lat. 1317, fols. 128v-129r; and Bacon, Epistola, Chapter 7, 542.
153.
Bacon, Opus maius, Part 6, 213 (625). This answer is also provided in Bacon, Reg. Lat. 1317, fols. 128v-129r.
154.
Bacon, Reg. Lat. 1317, fol. 129r. Sed tamen nec Aristoteles nec Salomon ad idem devenerunt. Eius probatio est qui parum vixerunt hoc enim secretum maximum non conceditur nisi per specialem illustrationem divinam nec mirum cum omnis sapientia a domino Deo est nam ostendo in parte secunda operis.
155.
Bacon, Opus tertium, Chapter 104, 874; Bacon, Opus maius, Part 6, 207 (620).
156.
2 Esdras 3:4–7, New Revised Standard Version.
157.
Bacon, Epistola, Chapter 7, 540–1; Bacon, Opus minus, 374.
158.
Bacon, Epistola, Chapter 7, 540–1. Bacon did not discuss any theological implications of this, nor did he even mention that Artephius outlived Methuselah.
159.
Solinus, De mirabilibus mundi, 1:87. In Gaius Iulius Solinus. The Polyhistor, Arwen Apps, trans. PhD Dissertation: Macquarie University, 2011.
160.
Solinus, De mirabilibus mundi, 1:88–90.
161.
Bacon, Opus tertium, Chapter 112, 952.
162.
Bacon, Opus tertium, Chapter 104, 878, and Chapter 112, 952.
163.
Matus, Franciscans and the Elixir of life, Chapter 4.
164.
David C. Lindberg, “Lines of Influence in 13th-Century Optics: Bacon, Witelo, and Pecham,” Speculum 46:1 (1971): 66–83.
165.
Bacon, Secretum secretorum, 68.
166.
Williams, “Roger Bacon and His Edition of the Pseudo-Aristotelian Secretum secretorum,” 57–73.

References

Manuscripts

Bacon, Roger. “Antidotarius.” In Oxford, Bodleian Library MS Canon Misc. 480, folios 17r-19v.
Google Scholar
Bacon, Roger. “Antidotarius.” In Oxford, Bodleian Library MS Selden Supra 94, folios 133–155.
Google Scholar
Bacon, Roger. “De erroribus medicorum.” In Oxford, Bodleian Library MS Canon Misc. 480, folios 30r-35r.
Google Scholar
Bacon, Roger. “De erroribus medicorum.” In Oxford, Bodleian Library MS Selden Supra 94, folios 194–239.
Google Scholar
Bacon, Roger. “De erroribus medicorum.” In Oxford, Corpus Christi College MS 127, folios 1r-26v.
Google Scholar
Bacon, Roger. “Opus minus.” In Rome, Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana MS Reginensis Latini 1317, folios 108v-132r.
Google Scholar
Bacon, Roger. “Opus minus.” In Berlin, Staatsbibliotek zu Berlin MS Lat. Fol. 535, ff. 34r-51v.
Google Scholar

Printed Works

Allen, Meagan S. “Roger Bacon’s Medical Alchemy and the Multiplication of Species.” In The Philosophy and Science of Roger Bacon: Studies in Honour of Jeremiah Hackett, edited by Nicola Polloni and Yael Kedar. London: Taylor and Francis. 2021. 159–174.
Google Scholar
Bacon, Roger. “Antidotarius.” In Opera hactenus inedita Rogeri Baconi, Fasc. IX. De Retardatione Accidentium Senectutis cum aliis opusculis de rebus medicinalibus, edited by Andrew G. Little and E. Withington. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1928a.
Google Scholar
Bacon, Roger. “Communia naturalium.” In Opera hactenus inedita Rogeri Baconi, Fasc. II-IV. Communium Naturalium Fratris Rogeri, edited by Robert Steele. Oxford: Clarendon, 1911.
Google Scholar
Bacon, Roger. “Compendium studii philosophiae.” In Compendium studii philosophiae. Edited and Translated by Thomas S. Maloney. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2018.
Google Scholar
Bacon, Roger. “Compendium studii philosophiae.” In Fr. Rogeri Bacon Opera Quaedam Hactenus Inedita, Vol. I. Containing Opus Tertium; Opus Minus; Compendium Philosophiae. Edited by J.S. Brewer. London: Longman, Green, Longman, and Roberts, 1859a.
Google Scholar
Bacon, Roger. “De erroribus medicorum.” In Opera hactenus inedita Rogeri Baconi, Fasc. IX. De Retardatione Accidentium Senectutis cum aliis opusculis de rebus medicinalibus, edited by Andrew G. Little and E. Withington. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1928b.
Google Scholar
Bacon, Roger. “De erroribus medicorum.” In Mary Catherine Welborn. “The Errors of the Doctors According to Friar Roger Bacon of the Minor Order.” Isis XVIII (1932): 26–62.
Google Scholar
Bacon, Roger. “Epistola de secretis operibus artis et naturæ, et de nullitate magiæ.” In Fr. Rogeri Bacon Opera Quaedam Hactenus Inedita, Vol. I. Containing Opus Tertium; Opus Minus; Compendium Philosophiae. Edited by J.S. Brewer. London: Longman, Green, Longman, and Roberts, 1859b.
Google Scholar
Bacon, Roger. “Liber sex scientiarum.” In Opera hactenus inedita Rogeri Baconi, Fasc. IX. De Retardatione Accidentium Senectutis cum aliis opusculis de rebus medicinalibus, edited by Andrew G. Little and E. Withington. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1928c.
Google Scholar
Bacon, Roger. “Opus maius.” In The “Opus Majus” of Roger Bacon, 3 Volumes. Edited with Introduction and Analytical Table by John Henry Bridges. London: Williams and Norgate, 1900.
Google Scholar
Bacon, Roger. “Opus maius.” In The Opus Majus of Roger Bacon, 2 Volumes. Translated by Robert Belle Burke. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1928d.
Google Scholar
Bacon, Roger. “Opus minus.” In Fr. Rogeri Bacon Opera Quaedam Hactenus Inedita, Vol. I. Containing Opus Tertium; Opus Minus; Compendium Philosophiae. Edited by J.S. Brewer. London: Longman, Green, Longman, and Roberts, 1859c.
Google Scholar
Bacon, Roger. “Opus tertium”. In Roger Bacon: Opus tertium. Edition und Ubersetzung, mit einer Einleitung und Anmerkungen herausgegeben von Nikolaus Egel. Lateinisch-Deutsch. Edited and translated by Nikolaus Egel. Hamburg: Felix Meiner Verlag, 2020.
Google Scholar
Bacon, Roger. “Secretum secretorum.” In Opera hactenus inedita Rogeri Baconi, Fasc. V. Secretum Secretorum cum Glossis et Notulis. Versio Aglicana ex Arabico edita per A.S. Fulton. Edited by Robert Steele. Oxford: Clarendon, 1920.
Google Scholar
Bacon, Roger (pseudo). “De retardatione accidentium senectutis.” In Opera hactenus inedita Rogeri Baconi, Fasc. IX. De Retardatione Accidentium Senectutis cum aliis opusculis de rebus medicinalibus, edited by Andrew G. Little and E. Withington. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1928.
Google Scholar
Biblia Sacra Vulgata: Editio Quinta. Robert Weber and Roger Gryson, eds. Stuttgart: Deutsche Bibelgesellschaft, 2007.
Google Scholar
The Holy Bible: Containing the Old and New Testaments. New Revised Standard Version. New York: American Bible Society. Division of Christian Education of the National Council of Churches of Christ in the United States of America, 1989.
Google Scholar
Crisciani, Chiara. “History, Novelty, and Progress in Scholastic Medicine.” Osiris 6, Renaissance Medical Learning: Evolution of a Tradition (1990): 118–139.
Google Scholar
Crisciani, Chiara, and Michela Pereira. L’Arte del Sole e della Luna: Alchimia e filosofia nel medioevo. Spoleto. 1996.
Google Scholar
Demaitre, Luke. “The Care and Extension of Old Age in Medieval Medicine.” In Aging and the Aged in Medieval Europe, edited by Michael M. Sheehan. Toronto: Pontifical Institute of Mediaeval Studies, 1990. 1–23.
Google Scholar
De Vos, Paula. “The ‘Prince of Medicine’: Yuhanna ibn Masawyh and the Foundations of the Western Pharmaceutical Tradition.” Isis 104:4 (December 2013): 667–712.
Article Google Scholar
Garcia-Ballester, Luis. Galen and Galenism: Theory and Medical Practice from Antiquity to the European Renaissance. Edited by John Arrizabalaga, Montserrat Cabre, Lluis Cifuentes, and Fernando Salmon. Ashgate Variorum: Aldershot, 2002.
Google Scholar
Getz, Faye Marie. “To Prolong Life and Promote Health: Baconian Alchemy and Pharmacy in the English Learned Tradition”. In Health, Disease, and Healing in Medieval Culture, edited by Sheila Campbell, Bert Hall, and David Klausner. Palgrave Macmillan, 1992. 141–51.
Google Scholar
Getz, Faye Marie. “Charity, Translation, and the Language of Medical Learning in Medieval England.” Bulletin of the History of Medicine 64:1 (Spring 1990): 1–17.
Google Scholar
Gruman, Gerald J. “A History of Ideas about the Prolongation of Life: The Evolution of Prolongevity Hypotheses to 1800.” Transactions of the American Philosophical Society 56:9 (1966): 1–102.
Article Google Scholar
Hackett, Jeremiah. “Roger Bacon on Astronomy-Astrology: The Sources of the Scientia Experimentalis.” In Roger Bacon and the Sciences: Commemorative Essays, edited by Jeremiah Hackett, 175–197. Leiden: Brill, 1997a.
Chapter Google Scholar
Hackett, Jeremiah. “Roger Bacon on Scientia Experimentalis.” In Roger Bacon and the Sciences: Commemorative Essays, edited by Jeremiah Hackett, 277–315. Leiden: Brill, 1997b.
Chapter Google Scholar
Hackett, Jeremiah. “Roger Bacon.” In Medieval Philosophers, edited by Jeremiah Hackett. Detroit: Gale Research Inc., 1992.
Google Scholar
Jacquart, Danielle. “Islamic Pharmacology in the Middle Ages: Theories and Substances.” European Review 16:2 (2008): 219–227.
Article Google Scholar
Kaye, Joel. A History of Balance, 1250–1375: The Emergence of a New Model of Equilibrium and its Impact on Thought (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. 2014).
Book Google Scholar
Lemay, Richard. “The Teaching of Astronomy in Medieval Universities, Principally at Paris in the Fourteenth Century.” In Science, Medicine, and the University: Essays in Honor of Pearl Kibre. Part I, edited by Nancy Siraisi and Luke Demaitre. Manuscripta 20:2 (July 1976): 197–217.
Google Scholar
Leong, Elaine and Alisha Rankin. “Testing Drugs and Trying Cures: Experiment and Medicine in Medieval and Early Modern Europe.” Bulletin of the History of Medicine 91:2 (Summer 2017): 157–182.
Google Scholar
Lindberg, David C. “On the Applicability of Mathematics to Nature: Roger Bacon and His Predecessors.” British Journal for the History of Science 15 (1982): 3–25.
Article Google Scholar
Lindberg, David C. “Lines of Influence in 13th-Century Optics: Bacon, Witelo, and Pecham.” Speculum 46:1 (1971): 66–83.
Article Google Scholar
Maier, Anneliese. On the Threshold of Exact Science: Selected Writings of Anneliese Maier on Late Medieval Natural Philosophy. Translated by Steven D. Sargent. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1982.
Book Google Scholar
Matus, Zachary A. Franciscans and the Elixir of Life: Religion and Science in the Later Middle Ages. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2017.
Book Google Scholar
McVaugh, Michael. “Determining a Drug’s Properties: Medieval Experimental Protocols.” Bulletin of the History of Medicine 91:2 (Summer 2017): 183–209.
Article Google Scholar
McVaugh, Michael. “Bedside Manners in the Middle Ages.” Bulletin of the History of Medicine 71:2 (Summer 1997): 201–223.
Google Scholar
McVaugh, Michael. Medicine before the Plague: Practitioners and their patients in the crown of Aragon 1285–1345. Cambridge History of Medicine: Cambridge University Press, 1993.
Google Scholar
Moureau, Sébastien. “Elixir atque fermentum: New Investigations about the Link between Pseudo-Avicenna’s Alchemical De Anima and Roger Bacon: Alchemical and Medical Doctrines.” Traditio 68 (2013): 277–325.
Google Scholar
Moureau, Sébastien. “Some Considerations Concerning the Alchemy of the De anima in arte alchemiae of Pseudo-Avicenna.” Ambix 56:1 (2009): 49–56.
Article Google Scholar
Newman, William R. Promethean Ambitions: Alchemy and the Quest to Perfect Nature. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2004.
Google Scholar
Newman, William R. “An Overview of Roger Bacon’s Alchemy.” In Roger Bacon and the Sciences: Commemorative Essays, edited by Jeremiah Hackett, 49–65. Leiden: Brill, 1997.
Google Scholar
Newman, William R. “The Philosophers’ Egg: Theory and Practice in the Alchemy of Roger Bacon.” Micrologus 3 (1995): 75–101.
Google Scholar
Newman, William R. “The Alchemy of Roger Bacon and the Tres Epistolae Attributed to Him.” In Comprendre et maitriser la nature au moyen age: mélanges d’histoire offerts à Guy Beaujouan. Geneva: 1994. 461–479.
Google Scholar
Paravicini Bagliani, Agostino. “The Prolongation of Life and Its Limits; Western Europe, xiiith-xvith C.” In Micrologus 26: Longevity and Immortality: Europe, Islam, Asia (2018): 133–153.
Google Scholar
Principe, Lawrence M. The Secrets of Alchemy. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2013.
Google Scholar
Saif, Liana. The Arabic Influences on Early Modern Occult Philosophy. Palgrave Macmillan, 2015.
Book Google Scholar
Siraisi, Nancy G. Medieval and Early Renaissance Medicine: An Introduction to Knowledge and Practice. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1990.
Book Google Scholar
Solinus, Gaius Julius, “De mirabilibus mundi.” In Gaius Iulius Solinus. The Polyhistor. Translated by Arwen Apps. PhD Dissertation: Macquarie University, 2011.
Google Scholar
Thorndike, Lynn. “Roger Bacon and Experimental Method in the Middle Ages.” The Philosophical Review 23 (1914): 271–98.
Article Google Scholar
Weill-Parot, Nicolas. “Astrology, Astral Influences, and Occult Properties in the 13^th and 14^th Centuries.” Traditio 65 (2010): 201–230.
Article Google Scholar
Williams, Stephen J. “Roger Bacon and His Edition of the Pseudo-Aristotelian Secretum Secretorum.” Speculum 69 (1994): 57–73.
Article Google Scholar
Ziegler, Joseph. Medicine and Religion c. 1300: The Case of Arnau of Vilanova. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1998.
Book Google Scholar

Download references

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

Science History Institute, Philadelphia, PA, USA
Meagan S. Allen

Authors

Meagan S. Allen
View author publications
You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

Copyright information

About this chapter

Cite this chapter

Allen, M.S. (2023). Learning to Prolong Life. In: Roger Bacon and the Incorruptible Human, 1220-1292. Palgrave Studies in Medieval and Early Modern Medicine. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-12898-1_3

Download citation

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-12898-1_3
Published: 01 January 2023
Publisher Name: Palgrave Macmillan, Cham
Print ISBN: 978-3-031-12897-4
Online ISBN: 978-3-031-12898-1
eBook Packages: HistoryHistory (R0)

Publish with us

Policies and ethics