THE XVI CENTURY: THE ALCHIMISTS: The XVI Century: Paracelsus (1493-1541)

Paracelsus was born and raised in the village of Maria Einsiedeln in Switzerland, of a Swabian (Wilhelm Bombast von Hohenheim) chemist and physician father and a Swiss mother. As a youth he worked in nearby mines as an analyst. At the age of 16 he started studying medicine at the University of Basel, later moving to Vienna. He gained his doctorate degree from the University of Ferrara.[2] Germany, showing modern borders. ... Hohenheim is a suburb of Stuttgart in the state of Baden-, Germany. ... The University of Basel is located at Basel, Switzerland. ... The University of Ferrara is main university of the city of Ferrara in the Emilia-Romagna region of northern Italy. ...

His wanderings as an itinerant physician and sometime journeyman miner [3] took him through Germany, France, Hungary, the Netherlands, Denmark, Sweden, and Russia. In Russia, he was taken prisoner by the Tartars and brought before the Grand Cham at whose court he became a great favorite. Finally, he accompanied the Cham's son on an embassy from China to Constantinople. This article is about the city before the Fall of Constantinople (1453). ...

Paracelsus rejected Gnostic traditions, but kept much of the Hermetic, neoplatonic, and Pythagorean philosophies from Ficino and Pico della Mirandola; however, Hermetical science had so much Aristotelian theory that his rejection of Gnosticism was practically meaningless. In particular, Paracelsus rejected the magic theories of Agrippa and Flamel; Paracelsus did not think of himself as a magician and scorned those who did, though he was a practicing astrologer, as were most, if not all of the university-trained physicians working at this time in Europe. Astrology was a very important part of Paracelsus' medicine. In his Archidoxes of Magic Paracelsus devoted several sections to astrological talismans for curing disease, providing talismans for various maladies as well as talismans for each sign of the Zodiac. He also invented an alphabet called the Alphabet of the Magi, for engraving angelic names upon talismans.

Paracelsus pioneered the use of chemicals and minerals in medicine. He used the name "zink" for the element zinc in about 1526, based on the sharp pointed appearance of its crystals after smelting and the old German word "zinke" for pointed. He used experimentation in learning about the human body. His hermetical views were that sickness and health in the body relied on the harmony of man, the microcosm, and Nature, the macrocosm. He took an approach different from those before him, using this analogy not in the manner of soul-purification but in the manner that humans must have certain balances of minerals in their bodies, and that certain illnesses of the body had chemical remedies that could cure them. (Debus & Multhauf, p.6-12)

He summarized his own views: "Many have said of Alchemy, that it is for the making of gold and silver. For me such is not the aim, but to consider only what virtue and power may lie in medicines." (Edwardes, p.47) (also in: Holmyard, Eric John. Alchemy. p. 170).

Paracelsus gained a reputation for being arrogant, and soon garnered the anger of other physicians in Europe. He held the chair of medicine at the University of Basel for less than a year; while there his colleagues became angered by allegations that he had publicly burned traditional medical books. He was forced from the city after having legal trouble over a physician's fee he sued to collect. The University of Basel (German: UniversitÃ¤t Basel) is located at Basel, Switzerland. ...

He then wandered Europe, Africa and Asia Minor, in the pursuit of hidden knowledge. He revised old manuscripts and wrote new ones, but had trouble finding publishers. In 1536, his Die grosse Wundartzney (The Great Surgery Book) was published and enabled him to regain fame.

He died in 1541 in Salzburg, and was buried according to his wishes in the cemetery at the church of St Sebastian in Salzburg. His remains are now located in a tomb in the porch of the church. This article is about the capital of the Austrian state of Salzburg. ...

After his death, the movement of Paracelsianism was seized upon by many wishing to subvert the traditional Galenic physick- and thus did his therapies become more widely known and used.
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His motto was "alterius non sit qui suus esse potest" which means "let no man that can belong to himself be of another" ...

CONTRIBUTIONS TO TOXICOLOGIE
Paracelsus, sometimes called the father of toxicology, wrote:
German: Alle Ding' sind Gift und nichts ohn' Gift; allein die Dosis macht, dass ein Ding kein Gift ist.
"All things are poison and nothing is without poison, only the dose permits something not to be poisonous."
That is to say, substances often considered toxic can be benign or beneficial in small doses, and conversely an ordinarily benign substance like water can be deadly if over-consumed.[4]

He wrote the major work On the Miners' Sickness and Other Diseases of Miners documenting the occupational hazards of metalworking including treatment and prevention strategies. He also wrote a book on the human body contradicting Galen's ideas.

Galen put forward the theory that illness was caused by an imbalance of the four humours: blood, phlegm, black bile and yellow bile. He recommended specific diets to help in the "cleansing of the putrefied juices" and often purging and bloodletting would be used. This theory was accepted until challenged by Paracelsus who believed that illness was the result of the body being attacked by outside agents.