The symbol for sulfur stood for more than just the chemical element. Together with mercury and salt, the trio made up the Three Primes, or Tria Prima, of alchemy. The three primes could be thought of as points of a triangle. In it, sulfur represented evaporation and dissolution; it was the middle ground between the high and low or the fluid that connected them.

The symbol for mercury stood for the chemical element, which was also known as quicksilver or hydrargyrum. It was also used to represent the swiftly moving planet Mercury. As one of the three primes, mercury reflected both the omnipresent life force and a state that could transcend death or Earth.

Modern scientists recognize salt as a chemical compound, not an element, but early alchemists did not know how to separate the substance into its components to come to this conclusion. Simply, salt was worth its own symbol because it is essential for life. In the Tria Prima, salt stands for condensation, crystallization, and the underlying essence of a body.

There were several possible element symbols for the metal copper. The alchemists associated copper with the planet Venus, so sometimes, the symbol for "woman" was used to indicate the element.

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In Bed with Death: A Story of a Man Who Lived with the Body of His Loved One for Seven Years

Her name was Maria Elena Milagro de Hoyos. A young black-haired Cuban woman and Tanzler met for the first time in 1930 in the Marine Hospital in Key West, Florida. The young woman’s mother brought her in to see a doctor: at 21, she was dying of tuberculosis. After their first meeting Tanzler got sick, too: from then on and to the end of his days he was lovesick for this woman. Silk soaked in wax and plaster that replaced the decayed skin, bones connected with piano strings and wire, body stuffed with rags, a wig from hair cut before death and glass eyes — this was what Carl Tanzler’s love looked like for the seven years he lived with her after her death, before the idyll was destroyed by angry relatives of the deceased woman.

Tanzler was born in Dresden in 1877. After graduating from a medical university, he left for Australia, where during WWI he ended up in an internment camp. After the war, former prisoners were not allowed to stay in the country, so he was deported to Holland.

Tanzler saw no prospects in post-war Europe, so he decided to emigrate to the States — his sister already lived in Florida. In 1926, Carl with his wife and two daughters moved to Zephyrhills. When he submitted documents for US citizenship, he called himself Carl Tanzler von Cosel. This was not an accidental choice of name — Tanzler loved telling the story that he was supposedly a relative of Countess von Cosel and claimed that the ghost of the eminent relative had visited him his entire childhood. According to him, during those visions he also saw a face of a dark-haired young woman that was supposed to become the love of his life.

In 1927, he left the family in Zephyrhills and got a job as an X-ray technician in the Marine Hospital on Key West. Having met Elena de Hoyos after three years, Tanzler realized: this is the image of a loved one from his childhood visions. Von Cosel showered Elena with gifts and tried to cure her, but in vain. The illness won over the passion — on October 25, 1931, the young woman died of tuberculosis complications.

He claimed that the ghost had showed him the face of a dark-haired woman who was supposed to become the love of his life.

Cosel was inconsolable. He paid for the funeral and talked relatives into building a crypt with his money, but for some strange reason ordered only one key — for himself. For two years, he visited his love every day, but in 1933, when he was fired from the hospital, his visits stopped.

This sudden change surprised Elena’s relatives. The reason for this change that was discovered after seven years turned out to be even stranger. Elena’s sister who was tired of suspicions and rumours came to von Cosel when he was not home and he had to stand in court for desecration of a grave and abduction of a corpse.

Soon after he was fired, during one of his night visits a lovesick doctor took the body of his loved one from the crypt on a toy trolley. With the help of wax, plaster, hooks and strings he made her remains look like a living person, and didn’t save on dresses or perfume — he had to deal with the smell of the decay all the time. Since then and until his arrangement was uncovered in 1940, von Cosel had never slept alone — he shared the marital bed with Elena’s body. Later examination of the body showed to what extent had gone in his attempts to be close to her: a paper tube that made penetration easier was discovered in the woman’s vagina.