ONE day in 1527, Paracelsus let it be known that he would reveal the greatest secret of medicine to the inhabitants of Basle. The esteemed doctors and academics of the university, dressed in their rich robes and fur hats, gathered to hear his words of wisdom. Secretly they hoped the roving physician and alchemist would make a fool of himself; already they could feel the warm glow of epicaricacy. When Paracelsus appeared he was dressed, as usual, not in the costly clothes of a respected academic, but "in the plain smock of an artisan, stained and smeared with the residues of the chemistry laboratory". In his hands he bore the great secret - a dish which he held aloft for all the learned company to see. It contained "steaming human excrement". As the outraged audience hurried away in disgust, Paracelsus's words echoed after them: "If you will not hear the mysteries of putrefactive fermentation, you are unworthy of the name of physicians!" He did indeed believe that the essential truth of alchemy was expressed in the axiom "decay is the beginning of all birth". Confronting his enemies with "a bowl of crap" carried a less esoteric but equally eloquent message.
- Phillip Ball {with a steaming bowl of poetic license}