Paracelsus the mystical revolutionary
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Paracelsus the mystical revolutionary Bruce T. Moran: Paracelsus. An alchemical life. London: Reaktion Books, 2019, 216 pp, £15.95 HB Urs Leo Gantenbein1
© Springer Nature B.V. 2020
This book presents a broad overview of the life and ideas of the physician, natural philosopher and radical reformer Theophrastus Bombast von Hohenheim (1493/941541), known as Paracelsus. Written in an impressive style, the author strives to present the reader with a vivid picture of the temporal and medico-historical environment of this fascinating Renaissance thinker. Thus, the book not only presents an introductory biography of Paracelsus, but also outlines the state of science and medicine at the turn from the Middle Ages to modern times in an exemplary manner. Since Paracelsus was attacked and exiled all his life for his revolutionary views, he felt compelled in 1538, toward the end of his life, to justify himself and his ideas. This impressive defense in seven chapters, the Septem Defensiones, is an intriguing and detailed autobiographical testimony. Moran cleverly uses these seven defenses as a guideline for his own book, which he arranges in seven chapters on the corresponding topics, interweaving further important writings and ideas, to give a comprehensive and coherent picture of Paracelsus. In his first defense, Paracelsus justifies his new kind of medicine. Accordingly, Moran shows in his first chapter how Paracelsus’s medicine differed from conventional medicine, which was essentially based on humoral pathology. This approach to disease, which had remained the guiding theory throughout the Middle Ages, was based primarily on the Greco-Roman physician Galen and subsequently on Arab medicine, dominated by the Persian physician Avicenna. Paracelsus on the other hand argued that few of the conventional physicians were successful and caused more harm than good. What was needed above all was a deep understanding of nature and its remedies. Experience, experimentation and reasoning should replace the book knowledge of the old authorities. Paracelsus wanted to put these maxims into practice in 1527 when he was appointed city physician of Basel and professor of medicine at the university. But these two totally different worlds soon collided, and * Urs Leo Gantenbein ursleo.gantenbein@paracelsus‑project.org https://www.paracelsus.uzh.ch 1
Zurich Paracelsus Project, University of Zurich, Zurich, Switzerland
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Metascience
Paracelsus had to leave the city and adopt a restless wandering life. It was in Basel and during the years that followed that Paracelsus developed his distinctive medical theories. In addition to a thorough understanding of nature, the physician should be familiar with astronomy, since according to a Neoplatonic worldview all earthly things possessed a corresponding blueprint in the stars. Alchemy also played an important role with its methods for refining and purifying raw medical drugs. Paracelsus also modified the ancient elemental theory with its four elements: fire, water, air and ea
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