Paracelsus \Par`a*cel"sus\ (p[a^]r`[.a]*s[e^]l"s[u^]s), prop. n.
Philippus Aureolus Paracelsus (originally Theophrastus
Bombastus von Hohenheim, also called Theophrastus Paracelsus
and Theophrastus von Hohenheim). Born at Maria-Einsiedeln, in
the Canton of Schwyz, Switzerland, Dec. 17 (or 10 Nov.),
1493: died at Salzburg, Sept. 23 (or 24), 1541. A celebrated
German-Swiss physician, reformer of therapeutics,
iatrochemist, and alchemist. He attended school in a small
lead-mining district where his father, William Bombast von
Hohenheim, was a physician and teacher of alchemy. The family
originally came from W["u]rtemberg, where the noble family of
Bombastus was in possession of the ancestral castle of
Hohenheim near Stuttgart until 1409. He entered the
University of Basel at the age of sixteen, where he adopted
the name Paracelsus, after Celsius, a noted Roman physician.
But he left without a degree, first going to Wurtzburg to
study under Joannes Trithemius, Abbot of Sponheim
(1462-1516), a famous astrologer and alchemist, who initiated
him into the mysteries of alchemy. He then spent many years
in travel and intercourse with distinguished scholars,
studied and practiced medicine and surgery, and at one point
attended the Diet of Worms. He was appointed to the office of
city physician of Basel, which also made him a lecturer on
medicine at Basel about 1526, where, through the publisher
Johan Frobenius he made friends with the scholar Erasmus; and
there he fulminated against the medical pseudo-science of his
day, and against the blind adherence to ancient medical
authorities such as Hippocrates, Galen, and Avicenna, which
was still the prevalent philosophy of medicine in the
sixteenth century. But soon, in 1528, he was driven from the
city by the medical corporations, whose methods he had
severely criticized. He found refuge with friends, and
traveled and practiced medicine, but could not find a
publisher willing to print his books. He preached frequently
the need for experimentation in medicine. He is important in
the history of medicine chiefly on account of the impetus
which he gave to the development of pharmaceutical chemistry.
He was also the author of a visionary and theosophic system
of philosophy. The first collective edition of his works
appeared at Basel in 1589-91. Among the many legends
concerning him is that concerning his long sword, which he
obtained while serving as barber-surgeon during the
Neapolitan wars. It was rumored that in the hilt of the sword
he kept a familiar or small demon; some thought he carried
the elixer of life in the sword. He is buried in the cemetary
of the Hospital of St. Sebastian in Salzburg. For more
detailed information about Paracelsus, there is a special
project, the [a
href="http:]/www.mhiz.unizh.ch/Paracelsus.html">Zurich
Paracelsus Project available on the Web. --Century Dict.,
1906; --Bernard Jaffe (Crucibles: The Story of Chemistry,
Revised Edition, 1948).
[PJC]
The apothecaries, too, were enraged against this
iconoclast [Paracelsus]. For had he not, as official
town physician, demanded the right to inspect their
stocks and rule over their prescriptions which he
denounced as "foul broths"? These apothecaries had
grown fat on the barbarous prescriptions of the local
doctors. "The physician's duty is to heal the sick, not
to enrich the apothecaries," he had warned them, and
refused to send his patients to them to have the
prescriptions compounded. He made his own medicines
instead, and gave them free to his patients.
. . .
Then they hatched a plot and before long Basel had lost
Paracelsus, ostensibly because of the meanness of a
wealthy citizen. Paracelsus had sued Canon Lichtenfels
for failure to pay him one hundred guldens promised for
a cure. The patient had offered only six guldens, and
the fiery Paracelsus, when the court deliberately
handed in a verdict against him, rebuked it in such
terms that his life was in imminent danger. In the dead
of night, he was persuaded by his friends to leave
secretly the city where he had hurled defiance at the
pseudo-medicos of the world. --Bernard
Jaffe
(Crucibles:
The Story of
Chemistry,
Revised
Edition, 1948)
[PJC]
Although the theories of Paracelsus as contrasted with
the Galeno-Arabic system indicate no advance, inasmuch
as they ignore entirely the study of anatomy, still his
reputation as a reformer of therapeutics is justified
in that he broke new paths in the science. He may be
taken as the founder of modern materia medica, and
pioneer of scientific chemistry, since before his time
medical science received no assistance from alchemy. To
Paracelsus is due the use of mercury for syphilis as
well as a number of other metallic remedies, probably a
result of his studies in Schwaz, and partly his
acquaintance with the quicksilver works in Idria.
--Catholic
Encyclopedia,
1911
[PJC]
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