Diseases, 163 Paracelsus

Paracelsus, a Swiss physician of the sixteenth century, stated that everything is toxic, it is just the dose that matters. This statement still holds true 500 years after Paracelsus developed it to defend the use of toxic compounds such as lead and mercury in the treatment of serious diseases such as syphilis. Chemical compounds cause their toxic effects by inducing changes in cell physiology and biochemistry, and an understanding of cellular biology is a prerequisite if one wishes to understand the nature of toxic reactions. 

Paracelsus.The archidoxes of magic Of the supreme mysteries of nature Of the spirits of the planets Of the secrets of alchemy Of occult philosophy The mysteries of the twelve signs of the zodiack The magical cure of diseases Of celestial medicines / Paracelsus [translated from the Latin by Robert Turner], 2nd English ed. [i.e. 1st English ed. reprinted ed. Translated by Robert Turner. London 1656 reprint, London New York Askin Publishers Samuel Weiser, 1975. 162, [29] p. 

Paracelsus. The occult causes of disease being a compendium of the teachings laid down in his "Volumen Paramirum" by Bombastus von Hohenheim, better known as Paracelsus, by E. Wolfram. Done into English by Agnes Blake. London Rider, [1930], 296p. 

Paracelsus. Paracelsus of the supreme mysteries of Nature. Of the spirits of the planets. [Of] occult philosophy. The magical, sympa-thetical, and antipathetical cure of wounds and diseases. The mysteries Iof the twelve signs of the Zodiack. Englished by R. Turner. .. London Printed by J.C. forN. Brook and J. Harison and are to be sold at their shops at the Angel in Comhil, and the holy Lamb neer the East-end of Pauls, 1656. 10 pi, 158, [4] p. 

For over 2,000 years, alchemy was the only chemistry studied. Alchemy was the predecessor of modern chemistry and contributed to the slow growth of what we know about the Earth s chemical elements. For example, the alchemists interest in a common treatment for all diseases led to the scientific basis for the art of modern medicine. In particular, the alchemist/ physician Paracelsus (1493-1541) introduced a new era of medicine known as iatrochemistry, which is chemistry applied to medicine. In addition, alchemists elementary understanding of how different substances react with each other led to the concepts of atoms and their interactions to form compounds. 

Theophrastus was frail and sickly as an infant and suffered from rickets as a child. The effects of the disease can be seen in an etching that was made of Paracelsus as an adult. According to legend, he was also a eunuch, the result of an encounter with a wild boar. Another story says that he was castrated by some drunken soldiers. No one really knows which story is true or whether Paracelsus was indeed emasculated. Portraits of him as an adult never show him as having a beard, and he never became involved with any woman. Furthermore, he once declared that it was better to be a eunuch than an adulterer. On the other hand, he became bald in his later life and eunuchs almost never go bald. 

Paracelsus went on to dismiss the theory on which the orthodox medicine of the day was based. This theory, which had originally been proposed by Hippocrates, held that the body contained four humors blood, phlegm, yellow bile, and black bile. Disease was supposedly a consequence of imbalances in these humors, and it was the physician s job to correct the imbalances. Furthermore, each humor was associated with one of the four elements. For example, a fever was clearly the result of the presence of too much fire. The humor that corresponded to fire was blood, so feverish patients should be bled. All of this was nonsense, Paracelsus said. The body was a kind of chemical laboratory, and a doctor must investigate the properties of chemical compounds to find those that would cure any specific disease. 

Sruarr Clark, The Scientific Status of Demonology , in Vickers (ed.), Occult and Scientific Mentalities 351-74 Clark, Demons and Disease Clark, Thinkingwith Demons, 233-50 Daston and Park, Wonders and the Order of Nature, esp. chs. 3, 4 MacDonald, Mystical Bedlam, 174 Michael MacDonald, Witchcraft and Hysteria in Elizabethan London Edward Jorden and the Mary Glover Case (1991), p. xxxii Erik Midelfort, A History of Madness in Sixteenth-Century Germany (Stanford, Calif, 1992), 153-7 passim-, Webster, Paracelsus to Newton. 

Clark, Demons and Disease , 42-4 Clark, Thinking with Demons 226-7 Hutchison, Occult Qualities , 240-1 Pagel, Paracelsus, 174-82 Webster, Great Instauration, 287.1 am not here accounting for the role of the occult in Galenic teachings, on which see for instance, Copenhaver, Scholastic Philosophy and Renaissance Magic , 525-30. 

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