Paracelsus’ principle

The typical relationship between the dose of a chemical and its effect. This is a visual representation of the Paracelsus Principle. The chemical used in this illustration is alcohol and the effect measured is ability to walk. As the dose of alcohol increased the inability would increase until the maximum effect was attained (the subject would be unable to walk )... 

There are several ways in which drugs can be poisonous, but they are chemicals, to which the Paracelsus Principle applies, that at some dose they will be poisonous or toxic. Indeed it has been said that there are no safe drugs, only safe ways of using them. Although the toxic and even lethal effects of drugs taken in overdoses for suicidal purposes may be accepted by most people, the adverse effects that occur at normal doses are not as readily accepted. Unfortunately these adverse effects do occur. They are usually detected as a result of patients reporting them to their... 

Like mercury, arsenic is a double-edged sword which also illustrates the Paracelsus principle. Salvarsan was an effective treatment for S5rphilis, and it seems that arsenic trioxide is currently useful in the treatment of certain forms of leukaemia. Fowler s solution could have been effective in the treatment of fevers, although probably not for all the ailments for which it was recommended (see above). But for most people, the word arsenic is synonymous with poison. 

Knowledge of the relationship between dose and response (effect), and the threshold for this, is crucial in defining the risk of exposure to a chemical. Safety evaluation is a legal requirement for drugs, food additives, and contaminants in food, and a risk assessment has to be carried out in order to set the limits of exposure. The relationship between the dose and the response (effect) can be established and plotted as a graph. This is called a dose-response curve (see Figure 29 and box), which often shows that there is a dose(s) of the chemical that has no effect and another, higher dose(s) which has the maximum effect. It is a visual representation of the Paracelsus principle that, at some dose, all chemicals are toxic. The corollary to this is that there is a dose(s) at which there is no effect. 

Natural and synthetic chemicals affect every phase of our daily Hves ia both good and noxious manners. The noxious effects of certain substances have been appreciated siace the time of the ancient Greeks. However, it was not until the sixteenth century that certain principles of toxicology became formulated as a result of the thoughts of Philippus Aureolus Theophrastus Bombastus von Hohenheim-Paracelsus (1493—1541). Among a variety of other achievements, he embodied the basis for contemporary appreciation of dose—response relationships ia his often paraphrased dictum "Only the dose makes a poison."... 

The doctrine of Christ as the Messiah, the universal healer of both soul and body, was the fundamental principle of Fludd s medicine,as he explains hominis intemi per Christum regeneratio. From Paracelsus, he borrowed the idea of the vivifying powers of nature, but the principle of regeneration itself came from God through the form of the sun. Fludd stated Sol sit vitae sedes. ... 

Starkey, George. Liquor alchahest, or, A discourse of that immortal dissolvent of Paracelsus Helmont. It being one of those two wonders of art and nature, which radically dissolves all animals, vegitables, and minerals into their principles, without being in the least alter d, either in weight or activity, after a thousand dissolutions, c. Published by J.A. Pyrophilus. London 1675 reprint, Ann Arbor (MI) University Microfilms, 1974. 1 reel... 

The basic principle of toxicology, as first noted by the Swiss physician Paracelsus, is that the dose makes the poison. While this principle is easy to understand, the processes used to understand the relationships between dose and biological response, and ultimately to determine what dose of a chemical poses a reasonable certainty of no harm , are much more complicated. 

According to Paracelsus, the traditional four elements were receptacles for the principles. Like his contemporaries, he believed that earth, air, fire, and water were the basic building blocks of the universe. The principles, however, gave the elements the qualities they had, or as Paracelsus put it ... 

The Sceptical Chymist, which is written in the form of a dialogue between five people (two of whom mysteriously disappear in the part following the second title page and reappear near the end of the book), is a discussion of the chemical philosophies that prevailed in Boyle s day, the Aristotelian theory of the four elements and Paracelsus s theory of three principles. Boyle discusses them in exhaustive detail in order to foster skepticism concerning them. 

In the twelfth century there appeared in certain Latin works alleged to be translations from the Arabic the theory of the principles of metals namely mercury, which confers metallic properties, and sulfur, which causes the loss of these properties on roasting. Another principle, salt, which imparted refractoriness or fixity in the fire, was added later by the famous popularizer of medical chemistry, Paracelsus (85). 

Glauber, Johann Rudolph [1603 (or 1604)—1668]. Dutch (or German) "iaerochemist" [belonging to the 16th century school of medicine basedon principles of Swiss physician Paracelsus (1493— 1541)] who prepd expl substances Potassium Picrate and Ammonium Nitrate. He also prepd the salt known as "Glauber salt" (cryst Na sulfate) and pure nitric and hydrochloric acid. 

The next step away from the traditions of antiquity involved the addition of a third principle to Jabir s sulphur and mercury salt. Whereas the first two were components of metals, salt was considered an essential ingredient of living bodies. In this way alchemical theory became more than a theory of metallurgy and embraced all the material world. The three-principle theory is generally attributed to the Swiss alchemist Paracelsus (1493-1541), although it is probably older. Paracelsus asserted that sulphur, salt, and mercury form everything that lies in the four elements . 

By the end of the seventeenth century, the old traditional elements from Aristotle had been either abandoned by the new Paracelsian iatrochymists or absorbed under new terminology. Paracelsus tria prima of mercury, SULPHUR, and salt became the new set of elements or principles, each more narrowly focused on a single property than had been the four elements of Aristotle. Yet the tria prima clearly derived from the older tradition. Salt assumed the role of the Aristotelian earth, while sulphur took that of FIRE. The mercury of Paracelsus rather absorbed the characteristics of both AIR and water, becoming the carrier of all spiritual, i.e., volatile qualities of the products of fire analysis. Mercury also carried the basic metallic properties from the mercury/sulphur theory of metals brought to the Latin West from Arabic alchemy. 

Salt was one of Paracelsus tria prima. Like the other principles and the four elements of the alchemists, salt as principle took its qualities as well as its name from the material bodies with the same properties. In a fire analysis, salt was to be found in the non-volatile residue and extracted from the non-soluble earth by water. This real salt demonstrated the more or less universal presence of the salt principle in all such bodies. The presence of SALT as principle accounted for the body s solidity and resistance to fire. In its material manifestation, it was recognized by its solubility and its saline taste. 

Wilhelm Homberg, in a 1702 memoir on the general principles of chemistry, describes the sulphur principle as always active in its nature. On the other hand, the earth never acts but serves only as a recepticle or matrix for the other principles. Here very clearly expressed is the verbal connection between the matrix as womb in the earth (as instrument), and EARTH as an element or principle. There is a continuous linguistic and conceptual connection between the matrix of Paracelsus and the base of Rouelle. As Louis Lemery, a son of Nicholas Lemery, put it in 1706 ... 

D Holbach admits that the followers of Paracelsus before Stahl had utilized a Sulphureous Principle, or of Sulphur, but the idea that they... 

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