PARACELSUS, THEOPHRASTUS BOMBAST VON HOHENHEIM (c. 149o-1541), great German physician, born near Einsiedeln in the canton Schwyz. His father was also a physi cian and his mother was, before her marriage, superintendent of the hospital at Einsiedeln. The son's epithet, Paracelsus, was probably his own invention, and was meant to denote his superi ority to Celsus.
Paracelsus, for a short time, studied at the University of Basel and then with Trithemius, abbot of Sponheim, under whom he prosecuted chemical researches, but he soon departed to the mines in Tirol where he became absorbed in the mechanical difficulties of mining, in the nature of minerals and in the diseases of miners.
On his return to Basel in 1526, Paracelsus became town physi cian and lecturer on medicine at the university. The lectures, in German and not Latin, were preceded by a solemn burning of the works of Galen and Avicenna; they discredited past and con temporary medicine and set forth the lecturer's own theories and methods of treating disease. Gradually, however, the novelty of the doctrines of Paracelsus began to wear off, and his bombastic and quarrelsome nature became more intolerable. His opponents reacted by pointing out both that he possessed no degree and that there were serious defects in his system. Finally things came to a crisis through a dispute about fees with Canon Corne lius von Lichtenfels. In 1529, Paracelsus resumed his wanderings, practising in succession at Colmar, Nuremberg, Appenzell, Zurich, Pfaffers, Augsburg, Villach, Meran, Middelheim and other places. At last in 1541, Archbishop Ernst invited him to settle at Salz burg under his protection. There after a few months of rest, he died on Sept. 24. The cause of his death, like most other details in his history, is uncertain. His enemies asserted that he died in consequence of a drunken debauch, but others maintain that he was thrown down a steep incline by emissaries of jealous physi cians and apothecaries. He was buried in the churchyard of St. Sebastian. In 1752 a monument was erected to his memory.
In his works written during his wanderings, Paracelsus shows a genuine desire to promote the progress of medicine, but his powers were not adequate for his desires. Indeed, it has been said that it is questionable whether he introduced a single new truth into medicine. He advocates a simplicity in practice, but his prescriptions are extremely complicated; he exalts observa tion and experience, but he rejects dissection and all operations other than lithotomy, and, at the same time, introduces a number of new theories. Fundamentally, his system is based on a
visionary Neo-Platonic philosophy in which the life of man is regarded as inseparable from that of the universe. For him, the scriptural "limus terrae" from which the body of man is created is in reality an extract of all beings previously created. It is primarily a compound of "salt," "sulphur" and "mercury," the separation of these mystic elements in man being the cause of sickness. The separation is due to the failure of the Archaeus, an occult vital force which is situated in the stomach, to per form its function of separating the useful from the poisonous. For the treatment of disease, Paracelsus introduced mineral baths, made opium, mercury, lead, sulphur, iron, arsenic, copper sul phate a part of the pharmacopoeia, and popularized tinctures and alcoholic extracts. Since man contains all elements and requires them for the curing of his diseases, the physician must know the physical sciences and alchemy; he must also know astronomy, for not only do the stars influence disease, but man, like all terres trial beings, is penetrated by the astral spirit. Thirdly, the physi cian must know theology, since, in addition to body and spirit, man has a third factor, the soul, which was created by God, and to which the spirit serves as a kind of body. With Paracelsus' lofty views of the true scope of medicine it is impossible to reconcile his ignorance, his superstition and his erroneous ob servations.