Abstract
I AM grateful to Prof. Paneth for pointing out a very misleading—if not entirely false—statement. The Paracelsus question is so obscure, and still so controversial, that it was only on re-reading Dr. Bayon's article in the Proceedings of the Royal Society of Medicine of November, 1941, that I realized how strongly the opinion of specialists has turned against the “Basil Valentine” hypothesis. It would have been better to have said: “Some have thought that Paracelsus borrowed better still to have said nothing at all about Basil Valentine. For, in the days before universal printing and stringent copyright, to borrow was no sin. The habit was common, and did not seriously reflect upon the borrower's honesty, particularly in a work not specially intended for publication, unless originality was claimed or the amount borrowed extensive.
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JONES, W. Paracelsus and “Basil Valentine”. Nature 150, 380 (1942). https://doi.org/10.1038/150380b0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/150380b0
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