E. Cobham Brewer 1810–1897. Dictionary of Phrase and Fable. 1898.
Medicine,
in alchemy, was that agent which brought about the transmutation of metals, or renewed old age; the philosopher’s stone, and the elixir of life.
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“How much unlike art thou, Mark Antony!
Yet, coming from him, that great medicine hath
With his tinct gilded thee.”
Shakespeare: Antony and Cleopatra i. 5.
Father of Medicine. Aretæos of Cappado’cia, who lived at the close of the first and beginning of the second century, and Hippoc’rats of Cos (B.C. 460–357) are both so called.
s of Cos (
