Paracelsus
Paracelsus (born 11 November or 17 December 1493 in Einsiedeln, Switzerland - 24 September 1541) was an alchemist, physician, astrologer, and general occultist. Born Theophrastus Philippus Aureolus Bombastus von Hohenheim, he took the name Paracelsus later in life, meaning "beside or similar to Celsus", an early Roman physician.
Biography
Paracelsus was born at Einsiedeln, Switzerland, of a Swabian chemist father and a Swiss mother. He was brought up in Switzerland, and as a youth he worked in nearby mines as an analyst. He started studying medicine at the university of Basel at the age of 16. There is speculation he gained his doctorate degree from the University of Ferrara.
He later journeyed to Egypt, Arabia, the Holy Land, and Constantinople seeking alchemists from whom to learn. On his return to Europe, his knowledge of these treatments won him fame. He did not go along with the conventional treatment of wounds, which was to pour boiling oil onto them to cauterize them; or if they were on a limb, to let them become gangrenous and then to amputate the limb. Paracelsus believed the then-ridiculous idea that wounds would heal themselves if allowed to drain and prevented from becoming infected.
Paracelsus rejected Gnostic traditions, but kept much of the Hermetic, neoplatonic, and Pythagorean philosophies; 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 (N.B. This assertion regarding Flamel is problematic, since a.) no works by Flamel were in circulation prior to Paracelsus' death and b.) Flamel's theories are specifically alchemical and not magical); 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. His hermetical views were that sickness and health in the body relied on the harmony of man, the microcosm, and Nature of the macrocosm. 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)
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)
Indeed, the remnants of alchemical traditions can still be seen in modern medicine. For instance, the Caduceus has been adopted as the prime symbol of western medicine.
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 he angered his colleagues by publicly burning books by other physicians. He was forced from the city after having legal trouble over a physician's fee he sued to collect.
He then wandered Europe for some time, typically as a pauper. He revised old manuscripts and wrote new ones, but had trouble finding publishers. In 1536, his Die grosse Wundartzney (The Great Surgery Book) was published which enabled him to make a short comeback in popularity.
After his death, the movement of Paracelsianism was seized upon by many wishing to subvert the traditional Galenic physick- 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 belong to another that can belong to himself".
Contributions to toxicology
Paracelsus, sometimes called the "father" of toxicology, wrote:
- "The dose makes the poison." (A popular short version.)
The original quote is:
- German: Alle Ding' sind Gift und nichts ohn' Gift; allein die Dosis macht, das ein Ding kein Gift ist.
- "All things are poison and nothing (is) without poison; only the dose makes that a thing is no poison."
In other words, the amount of a substance a person is exposed to is as important as the nature of the substance. For example, small doses of aspirin can be beneficial to a person, but at very high doses, this common medicine can be deadly. In some individuals, even at very low doses, aspirin may be deadly.
Dose-response assesses the dose levels at which adverse effects were observed in test animals, and these dose levels are used to calculate an equal dose in humans.
Related
- Paracelsus is the title of a 1943 film by Georg Wilhelm Pabst.
- "Paracelsus" is a lengthy dramatic poem by Robert Browning.
- "Paracelsus and The Rose" is a short story by Jorge Luis Borges.
- Paracelsus is a character on a Chocolate Frog card in the Harry Potter series. A bust of Paracelsus is also present in the castle at Hogwarts, near Gryffindor, between the entrance to the Gryffindor common room and the Owlry. (Mentioned in OotP)
- In Fullmetal Alchemist, the father of Edward Elric and Alphonse Elric is called Hohenheim of Light. Having succeeded in his alchemical researches, he and his former lover, Dante, have achieved a costly pseudo-immortality, one of the traditional goals of alchemists, by using the lengendary alchemical amplifier, the Philosopher's Stone, whose creation was another goal for alchemists.
- In Star Ocean: Till the End of Time, the Paracelsus Table creates homonculi to make mock battles, used for the mini-game for characters to fight one another.
- In the Phantom comic strip, Paracelsus appeared in a story by Ulf Granberg and Jaime Vallvé from 1977 entitled The Ring. According to this story, it was Paracelsus who gave the first Phantom the Skull Ring.
- Paracelsus , The burn scarred and masked nemesis and former ally of Father in the CBS series Beauty and the Beast .
- In the Guilty Gear video games, the character A.B.A uses a key-shaped ax named Paracelsus as a weapon.
- At the end of Resident Evil 3: Nemesis, Jill Valentine discovers what appears to be a railgun of sorts in a deserted factory. Named Paracelsus's Sword, the weapon was designed by the U.S. government for the express purpose of destroying the most dangerous of the Umbrella Corporation's bio-organic weapons.
- In the book Esbae: A Winter's Tale, by Linda Haldeman, Professor Leo Ernst is a college professor teaching a Western Civilization class. While lecturing about witchcraft, sorcery, and magic in the Middle Ages, he briefly covers Paracelsus, including the fact that his real name was "Theophrastus Bombastus von Hohenheim! Now there's a name to conjure with." Later in the book, Chuck Holmes, unable to remember the proper incantations, uses the name to summon the demon Asmodeus.
- The DC Comics comic book The Human Race features a villain named Paracelsus who employs genetic engineering techniques.
- The Bruce Coville "A.I. Gang" trilogy includes a faux-AI chatterbot named Paracelsus, which is encased in the head of a Greek statue.
- "Paracelsus" is the title of a musical composition that was written by Mont Campbelland performed by the "Canterbury" jazzrock-band National Health in 1976. An excerpt appears on the NH compilation "Complete."
External links
- Azogue: It is a section of the e-journal Azogue with original reproductions of paracelsian texts.
- The Zurich Paracelsus Project
- History of zinc
- Paracelsus and the medical revolution of the Renaissance - A 500th Anniversary Celebration from the National Library of Medicine
- Theophrastus Paracelsus - Detailed entry from The Catholic Encyclopedia
- Biographical notes from The Galileo Project
- Paracelsus (from the Mystica)
- Paracelsus (from Alchemy Lab)
- The uses of enchantment, The Economist, January 19, 2006
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