Paracelsus (1493–1541)

Germany physician and alchemist who pioneered a new approach to treating illness, and helped usher medicine out of its medieval occultism and into the more rational scientific philosophies of the Renaissance. The son of a physician, his given name was Philippus Aureolus Theophrastus Bombast von Hohenheim. He was born and raised in the town of Einsiedeln in what is now Switzerland and spent several years wandering to the far corners of the known world to learn from philosophers, scientists, and doctors from Europe to Arabia and India. He studied in several universities, poring over the medical texts of the ancient writers and exploring the alchemical tracts of medieval writers. His studies and experiments led him to the conclusion that all matter derived from three basic substances—salt, sulfur, and mercury—that originated in a matter known as mysterium arcanum.

Paracelsus rejected the traditional practices of physicians, who in his day worked to rid the body of impurities through bleeding and purging. In his book Archidoxis, he explained his theory that certain essential qualities all derive from substances found in nature. He believed that philosophy, astronomy, alchemy, and virtue were all necessary to the work of a doctor, and that disease represented a malfunction of the body and not, as was traditional, the imbalance of the bodily humors. He elaborated his ideas in another major work, Opus Paramirum, or Work Beyond Wonder, which also explained the organs of the body as containing a guiding spirit that separated good qualities from bad. To cure disease, the physician needed to apply a substance manufactured from minerals, metals, or other compounds that was proper to the functioning of the diseased organ and could mimic the body's natural balancing action.

Paracelsus saw man as a microcosm of the universe, a being in which all the qualities found in nature had their counterparts on the human scale. The physical body, the soul, and an astral body were present, in which the latter spirit—which originated in the heavens—served as a blueprint for the form and function of all things and as an important link between the mind, the body, and the spiritual world. For this reason, the study of both human philosophy and scientific astronomy were needed for a physician to truly understand the workings and diseases of the body.

In 1524 Paracelsus became a lecturer and physician in the city of Basel, where his strange new ideas and his teaching in German instead of traditional Latin sparked bitter conflict with his physician rivals and quickly drove him from the city. In 1536 he published a handbook of surgery, Der Grossen Wundartzney. He died five years later under mysterious circumstances, with many historians believing that he was poisoned by rivals.

See Also: medicine