Elixir Vitae

Indeed, this last supposition would become increasingly significant to chemistry, but Dewar was premature in pronouncing the end of alchemical goals of transmutation of metals and the prolongation of life through an elixir vitae. 

Unfortunately, most early alchemists are unknown, considering that they were very secretive about their methods and left little in the way of written history. Their goals were mystical, economic, secret, unpublished, and unshared. Alchemic practices were also related to medicine as well as rehgion during some periods of time and in some countries. The alchemists main search was for the philosopher s stone that could unlock the secrets of transmutation—that is, the secrets of how to transform base metals and chemicals into different, more useful and valuable products, such as gold and silver. This also led to the futile search over many centuries for the elixir vitae that would be both the universal cure for all illnesses and the way to achieve immortality. 

Above Paracelsus Lecturing on the Elixir Vitae, by David Scott. One of the ways that Paracelsus infuriated his eolleagues and eritics was his insistenee on giving his lectures in German rather than in the accepted Latin language, as befitted a scholar. 

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