John of Rupescissa

The Franciscan John of Roquetaillade (Rupescissa), writing immediately after the humiliating rout of the French knighthood and the capture of the French king John II at the Battle of Poitiers in 1356, prophesied that plagues would cut down the populace like the harvest in the fields, the…

John of Rupescissa, a Catalonian monk who wrote c. 1350, prescribed virtually the same elixirs for metal ennoblement and for the preservation of health. His successors multiplied elixirs, which lost their uniqueness and finally simply became new medicines, often for specific ailments. Medical chemistry may…