Paracelsus

Paracelsus
Hirschvogel Paracelsus.jpg
Known portrait, attributed to
Augustin Hirschvogel
Born Phillip von Hohenheim
11 November 1493(1493-11-11) or
17 December 1493(1493-12-17)
Einsiedeln, Switzerland
Died 24 September 1541 (aged 47)
Salzburg, Austria
Cause of death Unknown
Occupation alchemist, physician, astrologer, and general occultist
Presumed portrait of Paracelsus, attributed to the school of Quentin Matsys.

Paracelsus (11 November or 17 December 1493 in Einsiedeln, Switzerland – 24 September 1541 in Salzburg, Austria) was an alchemist, physician, astrologer, and general occultist. Born Phillip von Hohenheim, he later took up the name Philippus Theophrastus Aureolus Bombastus von Hohenheim, and still later took the title Paracelsus, meaning "equal to or greater than Celsus", a Roman encyclopedist from the first century known for his tract on medicine.[1][2] He is also credited for giving zinc its name, calling it zincum.[3]

Contents

Biography

Paracelsus was born and raised in the village of Maria Einsiedeln in Switzerland. His father, Wilhelm Bombast von Hohenheim, was a Swabian chemist and physician; his mother was Swiss. As a youth he worked in nearby mines as an analyst. At the age of 16 he started studying medicine at the University of Basel, later moving to Vienna. He gained his doctorate degree from the University of Ferrara.[4]

His wanderings as an itinerant physician and sometime journeyman miner [5] took him through Germany, France, Hungary, the Netherlands, Denmark, Sweden and Russia.

Paracelsus rejected Gnostic traditions, but kept much of the Hermetic, neoplatonic, and Pythagorean philosophies from Ficino and Pico della Mirandola; however, Hermetical science had so much Aristotelian theory that his rejection of Gnosticism was practically meaningless. In particular, Paracelsus rejected the magic theories of Agrippa and Flamel; Paracelsus did not think of himself as a magician and scorned those who did, though he was a practicing astrologer, as were most, if not all of the university-trained physicians working at this time in Europe. Astrology was a very important part of Paracelsus' medicine. In his Archidoxes of Magic Paracelsus devoted several sections to astrological talismans for curing disease, providing talismans for various maladies as well as talismans for each sign of the Zodiac. He also invented an alphabet called the Alphabet of the Magi, for engraving angelic names upon talismans.

Paracelsus pioneered the use of chemicals and minerals in medicine. He used the name "zink" for the element zinc in about 1526, based on the sharp pointed appearance of its crystals after smelting and the old German word "zinke" for pointed. He used experimentation in learning about the human body.

Paracelsus gained a reputation for being arrogant, and soon garnered the anger of other physicians in Europe. He held the chair of medicine at the University of Basel for less than a year; while there his colleagues became angered by allegations that he had publicly burned traditional medical books. He was forced from the city after having legal trouble over a physician's fee he sued to collect.

He then wandered Europe, Africa and Asia Minor, in the pursuit of hidden knowledge. He revised old manuscripts and wrote new ones, but had trouble finding publishers. In 1536, his Die grosse Wundartznei (The Great Surgery Book) was published and enabled him to regain fame. Paracelsus' life is connected to the birth of Lutheranism, and his opinions on the nature of the universe are better understood within the context of the religious ideas circulating during his lifetime.

He died, aged 48, of natural causes and his remains were buried according to his wishes in the cemetery at the church of St Sebastian in Salzburg. His remains are now located in a tomb in the porch of the church.

After his death, the movement of Paracelsianism was seized upon by many wishing to subvert the traditional Galenic physics, and thus did his therapies become more widely known and used.

His motto was "alterius non sit qui suus esse potest" which means "let no man that can belong to himself be of another"

Philosophy

Paracelsus believed in the Greek concept of the four elements, but he also introduced the idea that, on another level, the cosmos was fashioned from three spiritual substances: the tria prima of Mercury, Sulfur and Salt. These substances were not the simple substances we recognise today, but were rather broad principles that gave every object both its inner essence and outward form. Mercury represented the transformative agent (fusibility and volatility); Sulfur represented the binding agent between substance and transformation (flamability); and Salt represented the solidifying/substantiating agent (fixity and incombustibility). For example, When a piece of wood is burnt, the products reflect its constitution: Smoke reflects Mercury, flame reflects Sulfur, and Ash reflects Salt.

The tria prima also defined the human identity. Sulfur embodied the soul, (the emotions and desires); Salt represented the body; Mercury epitomized the spirit (imagination, moral judgment, and the higher mental faculties). By understanding the chemical nature of the tria prima, a physician could discover the means of curing disease.

Contributions to medicine

Planet Metal Organ
Sun Gold Heart
Moon Silver Brain
Jupiter Tin Liver
Venus Copper Kidneys
Saturn Lead Spleen
Mars Iron Gall bladder
Mercury Quicksilver Lungs
The idea of harmony

Paracelsus pioneered the use of chemicals and minerals in medicine. His hermetical views were that sickness and health in the body relied on the harmony of man (the microcosm) and Nature (macrocosm), see also macrocosm and microcosm. He took an approach different from those before him, using this analogy not in the manner of soul-purification but in the manner that humans must have certain balances of minerals in their bodies, and that certain illnesses of the body had chemical remedies that could cure them. (Debus & Multhauf, p.6-12)

As a result of this hermetical idea of harmony, the universe's macrocosm was represented in every person as a microcosm. According to the insights at the time, there were Seven planets on the sky, Seven metals on Earth and Seven centers (or major organs) in Man - seven was a special number. Everything was heavenly and closely interrelated (see table).

Diseases were caused by poisons brought here from the stars. But 'poisons' were not necessarily something negative, in part because related substances interacted, in part because only the dose determined if a substance was poisonous or not. Evil could expel evil. Therefore, poisons could have beneficial medical effects. Because everything in the universe was interrelated, beneficial medical substances could be found in herbs, minerals and various alchymical combinations hereof. Paracelcus viewed the universe as one coherent organism pervaded by a uniting lifegiving spirit, and this in its entirety, Man included, was 'God'. His views put him at odds with the Church, for whom there necessarily had to be a difference between the Creator and the created. [6]

He summarized his own views: "Many have said of Alchemy, that it is for the making of gold and silver. For me such is not the aim, but to consider only what virtue and power may lie in medicines." (Edwardes, p.47) (also in: Holmyard, Eric John. Alchemy. p. 170)

Hippocrates put forward the theory that illness was caused by an imbalance of the four humours: blood, phlegm, black bile and yellow bile. These ideas were further developed by Galen into an extremely influential and highly persistent set of medical beliefs that were to last until the mid 1850s. The dominant medical treatments at Paracelsus' time were specific diets to help in the "cleansing of the putrefied juices" combined with purging and bloodletting to restore the balance of the four humours. Paracelsus supplemented and challenged this view with his beliefs that illness was the result of the body being attacked by outside agents.

He wrote the major work On the Miners' Sickness and Other Diseases of Miners documenting the occupational hazards of metalworking including treatment and prevention strategies. He also wrote a book on the human body contradicting Galen's ideas

Contributions to toxicology

Monument to Paracelsus in Beratzhausen, Bavaria

Paracelsus, sometimes called the father of toxicology, wrote:

German: Alle Ding sind Gift, und nichts ohn Gift; allein die Dosis macht, daß ein Ding kein Gift ist.
"All things are poison and nothing is without poison, only the dose permits something not to be poisonous."

That is to say, substances often considered toxic can be benign or beneficial in small doses, and conversely an ordinarily benign substance can be deadly if over-consumed. Even water can be deadly if overconsumed[7].

"The Yogis, in the days of Marco Polo, as well as in our modern times, do use that which may appear to be quicksilver, but is not. Paracelsus, the alchemists, and other mystics, meant by mercurius vitae, the living spirit of silver, the aura of silver, not the argent vive; and this aura is certainly not the mercury known to our physicians and druggists. There can be no doubt that the imputation that Paracelsus introduced mercury into medical practice is utterly incorrect. No mercury, whether prepared by a mediaeval fire-philosopher or a modern self-styled physician, can or ever did restore the body to perfect health. Only an unmitigated charlatan ever will use such a drug. And it is the opinion of many that it is just with the wicked intention of presenting Paracelsus in the eyes of posterity as a quack, that his enemies have invented such a preposterous lie." (Madame H.P. Blavatsky, ISIS UNVEILED, vol. 2, p. 621)

Contributions to psychotherapy

Paracelsus is credited as providing the first clinical/scientific mention of the unconscious. In his work Von den Krankeiten he writes: "Thus, the cause of the disease chorea lasciva is a mere opinion and idea, assumed by imagination, affecting those who believe in such a thing. This opinion and idea are the origin of the disease both in children and adults. In children the case is also imagination, based not on thinking but on perceiving, because they have heard or seen something. The reason is this: their sight and hearing are so strong that unconsciously they have fantasies about what they have seen or heard."

Legend and rumour

Paracelsus is often cited as coining the phrase "the dose makes the poison". Although he did not say this precisely, it seems that Paracelsus was indeed well aware of the principle (see discussion on Toxicology above).

Many books mentioning Paracelsus also cite him as the origin of the word "bombastic" to describe his often arrogant speaking style. However, according to the Oxford English Dictionary, the origin of the word "bombastic" is not a play on Paracelsus's middle name, Bombastus. Instead, that dictionary cites "bombast": an old term for cotton stuffing.

Works

Published during his lifetime

Posthumous Publications

Selected English translations

Online bibliographies

References

  1. ↑ Read, J. Through Alchemy to Chemistry. Bell and Sons; London; 1961
  2. ↑ "Introduction" to A. Cornelius Celsus, De Medicina (On Medicine), Vol. I of the Loeb Classical Library edition, 1935
  3. ↑ Habashi, Fathi, Discovering the 8th Metal, International Zinc Association (IZA), http://www.iza.com/Documents/Communications/Publications/History.pdf .
  4. ↑ [1] James L. and Virginia R. Marshall, "Rediscovery of the Elements: Paracelsus", Hexagon (Winter, 2005) pp. 71-8.
  5. ↑ Conner, Clifford D., A Peoples History of Science, Nation Books 2005 ISBN 1-56025748-2, p. 306
  6. ↑ Wittendorff, Alex (1994). Tyge Brahe. G.E.C. Gad.  p44-45
  7. ↑ 26 January 2007: Dr. Adrian Cohen was saddened, but not surprised, to hear about the 28-year-old woman who died earlier this month after drinking nearly two gallons of water to try to win a radio station contest. (WashTimes)

Further reading

External links

Persondata
NAME Paracelsus
ALTERNATIVE NAMES von Hohenheim, Philippus Theophrastus Aureolus Bombastus
SHORT DESCRIPTION physician, occultist
DATE OF BIRTH 11 November or 17 December 1493
PLACE OF BIRTH Einsiedeln, Switzerland
DATE OF DEATH 24 September 1541
PLACE OF DEATH Salzburg