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Theophrastus Philippus Aureolus Bombastus von Hohenheim (1493-1541), more commonly known as Paracelsus, is one of the most controversial figures in the history of Renaissance medicine (our word, "bombastic," comes from his name). A medical reformer and prophetic writer, Paracelsus may have taken a medical degree at the University of Ferrara, though the record is ambiguous about whether he ever graduated. We know that he worked as a military surgeon in northern Italy, possibly traveling as far as north as Scandinavia and to parts of the Middle East. But he spent most of his life in the German-speaking regions of Europe, especially Switzerland (where he worked briefly as a town physician in Basel, enraging his fellow physicians), Austria and Bohemia. Deeply influenced by the German Reformation, which began with Martin Luther's attack on the Roman Catholic Church in 1517, Paracelsus has often been called the "Luther of medicine"; though he remained a Catholic all of his life, his religious as well as medical views were highly unorthodox and controversial. In essence, Paracelsus advocated for a more chemical (alchemical) medicine that restored a proper balance between the microcosm (man) and the macrocosm (the universe he inhabited). The excerpts below will give you some sense of how Paracelsus saw his ideas about healing, faith and knowledge in relation to ancient medical authorities and to contemporary medicine in his own day.
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PARACELSUS: ESSENTIAL READINGS
Selected and translated by
NICHOLAS GOODRICK-CLARKE
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DAS BUCH PARAGRANUM (1529-30)
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Theyreproach me that my writings are not like theirs; that is the fault of their understanding,not my fault, for my writings are well rooted in experiment and evidence andwill send forth their young shoots when the right May-time comes. Theyhave good cause to complain of my writings, for no one cries out unless he ishurt; no one is hurt unless he is sensitive, unless he is transient andimpermanent. They cry out because their art is fragile and mortal; whatis not mortal does not cry out, thus they are mortal and they cry out againstme. The art of medicine does not cry out against me, for it is immortaland set upon such an eternal foundation that heaven and earth shall beshattered before medicine perishes. So long as I am at peace withmedicine, why should the outcry of a mortal physician upset me. They cryout because I wound them; it is a signthey themselves are sick in their medicine; this disease is their struggleagainst me, because they are not pleased to be discovered and exposed.
Their worst contention against me is that I do not come out of their schools,nor write out of their learning. If I wrote in such a way, how should Iescape punishment for lying, for the old writings are manifestlyfalse. What, then, can come out of them but falsehood? If I want towrite the truth about their medicine, about their students, masters, andpreceptors, there would have to some common ground uniting them, for they areall shouting out what medicine is, and their outcry needs to be exposed just asmuch as their art. So, if I attempt to write the truth about them, I mustpoint out those bases upon which true medicine stands, in order that people mayjudge whether I have authority to write or not.
And because I write from the true source of medicine, I must be rejected, andyou who are born neither of the true origin nor of the true heredity mustadhere to the spurious art which raises itself beside the true. Who isthere amongst the instructed who would not prefer what is grounded on a rock towhat is grounded on sand? Only the abandoned academic drunkards who bearthe name of doctor must suffer no deposition! They abide, painteddoctors, and if they were not painted with this title, who would recognizethem? Their works would certainly not reveal them. Outwardly theyare beautiful, inwardly they are squalid dunces. What instructed andexperienced man desires a doctor who is only an outward show? None.Only the simpletons desire him. What, then, is the origin of thatmedicine which no instructed man desires, from which no Philosophy issues, inwhich no Astronomy can be noted, in which no Alchemy is practised, and in whichthere is no vestige of Virtue? And because I point out these thingsessential in a physician, I must needs have my name changed by them toCacophrastus, when I am really called Theophrastus, both for my art's sake andby my christening.
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Understand then thoroughlythat I am expounding the basics of medicine upon which I stand and will stand:namely, Philosophy, Astronomy, Alchemy, and Virtue. The first pillar,Philosophy, is the knowledge of earth and water; the second pillar, Astronomytogether with Astrology, has a complete knowledge of the two elements, air andfire; the third pillar, Alchemy, is knowledge of the experiment and preparationof the four elements mentioned; and the fourth pillar, Virtue, should remainwith the physician until death, for this completes and preserves the otherthree pillars. And note well, for you too must enter here and come tounderstand the three pillars, otherwise it will be known by the very peasantsin the villages that your trade is to treat princes and lords, towns andcountries through lies and deception only and that you know neither your tradenor the truth, for the education which prepares you fits you for fools andhypocrites, all you supposed physicians. And as I take the four pillars,so must you take them too and follow after me, not I after you.
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Follow after me, Avicenna,Galen, Rhasis, Montagnana, Mesue, etc. Follow after me, and not I afteryou, you from Paris, you from Montpellier, you from Swabia, you from Meissen,you from Cologne, you from Vienna and from the Danube, the Rhine, and theislands in the sea. Italy, Dalmatia, Sarmatia, Athens, Greek, Arab, Israelite,follow me and not I you. Not one of you will survive, even in the mostdistant corner, where even the dogs will not piss. I shall be monarch and minewill be the monarchy.
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There are three substanceswhich give every single thing its body. The names of these three thingsare Sulphur, Mercury, and Salt. These three are combined to make a body andnothing else is added save life and that which pertains to it. If youtake an object in your hand, you have these three substances concealed withinone body. A peasant can tell you that you are holding a piece of wood,but you also know that you have a compound of Sulphur, Mercury, and Salt.If you have a bone and can say whether it is mostly Sulphur, Mercury, or Salt,,you know why it is diseased or what is the matter with it. The peasantcan see the externals, but the physicians task is to see the inner and secretmatter. In order to make these things visible, Nature must be compelledto show itself.... Take a piece of wood. It is a body. Nowburn it. The flammable part is the Sulphur, the smoke is the Mercury, andthe ash is the Salt. The peasant cannot understand the process ofcombustion, but the physician can with the eyes of medicine.
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What is the taste other thana need in the anatomy in which nothing is important except to reach its ownlike? It follows that as this gustus [taste] is distributed toevery member in the body, each desires its own like, the sweet desires thesweet, the bitter desires the bitter, each in its degree and measure, as thoseheld by the plants sweet, sour, and bitter. Shall the liver seek medicinein gentian, agaric, or colocynth? No. Shall the gallbladder seekmedicine in manna, honey, sugar, or the polypody fern? No, for like seeksits like. Nor in the order of anatomy shall cold be a cure for heat, norheat for cold. It would be a wild disorder if we were to seek our cure incontraries. A child asks his father for bread and he does not give him asnake. God has created us and he gives us what we ask, not snakes.So it would be bad medicine to give bitters where sugar is required. Thegall -bladder must have what it asks, and the heart too, and the liver.It is a fundamental pillar upon which the physician should rest to give to eachpart of the anatomy the special thing that accords with it. For the breadwhich the child eats has an anatomy similar to his own, and the child eats asit were his own body. Therefore each sickness in the anatomy must haveits own corresponding medicine. He who does not understand the anatomyfinds it difficult to act if he be honest and simple; but it is worse with thosewhose honour is small and whom shame and crime do not trouble. They arethe enemies of the light of Nature.... What blind man asks for bread fromGod and receives poison? If you are experienced and grounded in anatomyyou will not give stones instead of bread. For know that you are thefather rather than the physician of your patients: therefore feed them as afather does his child. As a father must support his child according tohis need and must give him the food which becomes himself, so must thephysician care for his patients.
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Christ who is the Truth hasgiven us no false remedy but one that is compatible and arcane. For farbe it from us to say that Christ knew not the sympathy of Nature.Therefore oil and wine must be competent,else there is no foundation in medicine.... Let it be manifest to youthat a grain of wheat yields no fruit unless it be cast into the ground and diethere. Thus the wound is the earth, and the oil and wine the grain.You must guess what the fruit is.
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Thereare three anatomies which should be maintained in man: first localis , which tells us form,propositions, substance of a man and all that pertains to him; the second showsthe living Sulphur, the flowing Mercury, the sharp Salt in each organ; and thethird instructs us what kind of anatomy death brings, that is mortisanatomia, and in what manner and likeness he comes. For the light ofNature shows that death comes in as many forms as there are species from theelements; there are as many kinds of death as there are kinds ofcorruption. And just as each corruption gives birth to another, itrequires anatomy. It comes in many forms until one after another we alldie and are consumed through corruption. But beyond all these anatomies,there is also a uniform science in the anatomy of medicine, and beyond them allstand heaven, earth, water, and air, and the heavens and all the stars havetheir part in the new anatomy. For Saturn must give his saturnum,Mars his martem, and until these are discovered, the art of medicine hasnot been found. For as the tree grows out of the seed, so must all thatseems now invisible grow into new life, for it is there, and it must come topass that it shall be visible. For the light of Nature is a light to makemen see and it is neither dark nor dim.
And it must come to pass thatwe shall use our eyes in that light to see those things that we require tosee. They will not be otherwise than they are now; but we must beotherwise able to see them. We must see in a different manner to thepeasant. The light of Nature must kindle our eyes.
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All our nourishment becomesourselves; we eat ourselves into being. So also in medicine, with thisdifference, that the treatment must match the disease. In health all thatis worn out is restored to each organ by and in itself. Do not beastonished at this: a tree which stands in the field would not be a tree,had it no nourishment. What is nourishment? It is not a merefeeding or stuffing, but the restoration of form. What is hunger? It is aprecursor of future death in the waste of the organs. For the form iscarved by God himself in the womb. This carving abides in the form ofeach type, but it wastes and dies without addition from without. He whodoes not eat does not grow, he who does not eat does not last. Thereforehe who grows, grows by nourishment, and the shaper is with him to give form,and without it he cannot exist. Whence it follows that the nourishment ofeach careen type has the form within itself in which it grows anddevelops. Rain has the tree in itself, and so has the earth sap.Rain is the drink, earth sap the food, by which the tree grows. What isit that grows? What the tree absorbs from rain and earth sap becomes woodand bark. The shaper is in the seed, wood and bark are in the earth sap and therain. The craftsman in the seed can make wood out of these twothings. And it is the same with plants; the seed is nothing but abeginning in which is the form and the craftsman, the type and property.If it is to germinate, the rain, dew, and earth sap must develop the plant, forin these are the stalks, leaves, flowers, and so on.
Theremust therefore be an outward form in all nourishment for growth, and if we donot receive it, we never grow but die in the neglected form. And if weare grown up, we must preserve our form, lest it waste away. For we havein us what resembles fire, which consumes our form. If we did not supplyand support the form of our body, it would die neglected. Therefore whatwe eat becomes ourselves so that we do not die through the decay of ourform. In this way we eat our fingers, our body, blood, flesh, feet,brain, heart, and so on. For every bite we take contains in itself allour organs, all that is included in the whole man, all of which he isconstituted . . . When summer is at hand, the trees become hungry because theywant to put forth leaves, blossom, fruit. They have not got these withinthemselves, otherwise trees that were cut down would put forth leaves as wellas those still standing. They stand in the earth whence they receivethese things into their own form, where the craftsmen shapes them according tothe kind of each; that is his contribution. Know therefore that in order to preserve their form and type from being consumed, all living thingsbecome hungry and thirsty.
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There are two men, visibleand invisible. That which is visible is twofold, namely, like the body inthis example. An image is carved out of wood, in which it could not beoriginally discerned. This is the nourishment, which once in the bodygoes into all its organs. It does not remain in one part, but is richlyused. For the great Artist carves it, He who makes man, and distributesto the organs so as to make man. Now we know that we eat ourselves; everytree and every creature that lives, and we must now learn further what followsfrom this concerning medicine. We do not eat bone, blood vessels,ligaments, and seldom brain, heart, and entrails, nor fat; therefore bone doesnot make bone, nor brain brain, but every bite contains all these. Breadis blood, but who sees it? It is fat, who sees it? For themaster-craftsman in the stomach is good. He can make iron out ofbrimstone; he is there daily and shapes the man according to his form. Hecan make diamonds out of salt, and gold out of mercury. He is moreconcerned with man than with things, so he labours at him in all that isnecessary. Bring him the material, let him divide it and shape it as itshould be, for he knows the measure, number, weight, proportion, length andall. Know then that every creature is twofold, one out of the seed, theother out of nourishment.... He has death within himself, and throughnourishment he must hold it at bay.
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Thebody is developed from Sulphur, that is, the whole body is one Sulphur, andthat a subtle Sulphur which burns and destroys invisibly. Blood is oneSulphur, flesh is another, the major organs another, the marrow another, and soon; and this Sulphur is volatile. But the different bones are alsoSulphur, only their Sulphur is fixed: in scientific analysis each Sulphur canbe distinguished. Now the stiffening of the body comes from Salt: without the Salt no part of the body could be grasped. FromSalt the diamond receives its hard texture, iron its hardness, lead its softtexture, alabaster its softness, and so on. All stiffening or coagulationcomes from Salt. There is therefore one Salt in the bones, another in theblood, another in the flesh, another in the brain, and so on. For as manyas there are Sulphurs there are also Salts. The third substance of thebody is Mercury; which is a fluid. All parts of the body have their own fluid:thus the blood has one, the flesh has another, the bones, the marrow, each hasits own fluid, which is Mercury. So that Mercury has as many forms asSulphur and Salt. But since roan must have a complete form, its variousparts must compact, stiffen, and have a fluid: the three form and unite onebody. It is one body but of three substances. Sulphur burns, it isonly a sulphur; Salt is an alkali, for it is fixed; Mercury is a vapour, for itdoes not burn but evaporates. Know then that all dissolution arises fromthese three.
Thethree substances are in the four elements, or mothers of all things; for out ofthe elements proceed all things: from earth come plants, trees, and alltheir varieties; from water, metals, stones, and all minerals; from the air,dew and manna; from fire, thunder, rays of light, snow, and rain. Andwhen the microcosm is broken up, part becomes earth, and so wonderful that in abrief time it bears the fruits whose seed has been sown therein, and this thephysician should know. Out of the broken body, too, comes the secondelement, water; and as water is the mother of the minerals, the alchemist cancompound rubies out of it. And the dissolution also gives the thirdelement, fire, from which hail can be drawn. And air too ascends from therising spirit, just as dew forms inside a closed glass. Many have begun totreat of this generation of creation, but they have failed. There isanother transmutation after these, and it yields every kind of Sulphur, Salt,and Mercury which the microcosmic world can demonstrate. This is veryimportant, for it concerns man's quest for health, his water of life, hisPhilosopher's Stone, his arcanum, his balsam, hisgolden drink, and the like. All these things are in the microcosm; justas they are in the outer world, they are in the inner world.
Therefore man is his ownphysician; for as he helps Nature she gives him what he needs, and gives himhis herbal garden according to the requirements of his anatomy. If weconsider and observe all things fundamentally we discover that in ourselves isour physician and in our own nature are all things that we need. Take ourwounds: what is needed for the healing of wounds? Nothing except that theflesh should grow from within outwards, not from the outside inwards.Therefore the treatment of wounds is a defensive treatment, that no contingencyfrom without may hinder our nature in its working. In this way our natureheals itself and levels and fills up itself, as surgery teaches the experiencedsurgeon. For the mumia is the man himself, the mumia is thebalsam which heals the wound: mastic, gums, glaze will not give a morsel offlesh; but they can protect the working of Nature so as to assist it.
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Sinceman derives from the limbus and the limbus is the whole world, itfollows that each several thing finds its like in the other. For were mannot made out of the whole in every part of the whole, he could not be themicrocosm. nor would he be capable of attracting to himself all that is themacrocosm. But as he is made out of the whole, all that he eats out ofthe Great World is part of himself for he must be maintained by that of whichhe is made. For as a son is born from his father and no one helps the sonso naturally as the father, in the same way the curative members of the outerworld help the members of the inner world. For the Great World has allthe human proportions, divisions, parts, members just as man has; and manreceives these in food and medicine. These parts are separated one fromanother for the sake of the whole and its form. In science their general body is the physicum corpus. Soman's body receives the body of the world, as a son his father's blood; forthese are one blood and one body, separated only by the soul, but in sciencewithout separation. It follows then that heaven and earth, air and waterare a man in science, and man is a world with heaven and earth, air and waterin science. So the Saturn of the microcosm receives from Saturn in theheavens, as the Jupiter of the heavens takes from the Jupiter of themicrocosm. The melissa of the earth takes from the melissa of themicrocosm . . . and they are all in union. Therefore heaven and earth,air and water are one substance, not four, nor two, nor three, but one.Where they are not in union, the substance has been destroyed or broken up.
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We must therefore understandthat when we administer medicine, we administer the whole world: that is, allthe virtue of heaven and earth, air and water. Because if there issickness in the body, all the healthy organs must fight against it, not onlyone, but all. For one sickness can be death to them all: note howNature struggles against sickness with all her power. Therefore yourmedicine must contain the whole firmament of both upper and lowerspheres. Think with what energy Nature strives against death when shetakes heaven and earth with all their powers to help her. So too must thesoul. fight against the devil with all her might .... Nature has ahorror of cruel and bitter death, which our eyes cannot sec, nor our handsclutch. But Nature sees and knows and clutches him: therefore she employsthe powers of heaven and earth against the terrible one, for terrible he is andmonstrous, hideous, and harsh. As he who made him, Christ on the Mount ofOlives, who sweated blood and prayed to his Father to take him away -- it is reasonablethat Nature should be appalled. For the better death is known, thegreater is the value of medicine, a refuge which the wise seek.
