Paracelsus

Title

Paracelsus

Creator

General Electric Science Forum

Language

English

Year

1965

Rights

In Copyright - Educational Use Permitted

Abstract

He changed chemistry’s direction from transmitting things to gold to improving the health of men.

Fulltext

■ He changed chemistry’s direction from transmiting things to gold to improving the health of men. PARACELSUS The latter part of the 15th Century was a period of re volutionary changes. Amer ica had been discovered. Printing had been invented. Science was shaking off the shackles of tradition. At the height of this per iod, in 1493, there was born in Switzerland a man who became a revolutionary lead er in chemistry by changing its course from the vain pur suit of alchemy to a realis tic search for new chemical compounds and to the in vestigation of their value in healing disease. He is known by the name which he gave himself, Paracelsus. His family had christened him Theophrastus Bombastus. To many people, there was significance in that name, Bombastus. In the estimation of the professional class of his age and of some scholars even today, he was indeed nothing but the bom bastic knave, a charlatan, an egoist who saw himself sup reme and who arrogantly de rided the leaders in his pro fession as incompetent and ignorant. The truth is somewhat dif ferent. By nature his spirit was a fighting one and he attempted, single-handed, a rebellion in two sciences, chemistry and medicine. After finishing college, he spent several years in mining laboratories and in them he became proficient in the chemistry of his day. "Why are not chemical compounds of the metals used in medi cine?” he wondered. At the age of 24 he decided to study medicine and find out if they could be used. On returning to the uni versities, he was appalled to find that the training of a physician included no lab oratory work whatever. Medical training was little more than a parrot-like me September 1965 17 morizing of ancient, mystical writings. His experience in chemical laboratories had formed the habit of experimentation and of free inquiry as the means of acquiring know ledge. He left the univer sities in disgust and resolved on an unconventional method of training, to travel and to pick up his medical educa tion as he went. “In all corners of the world,” he wrote later, “I questioned people and sought for the true and experienced arts of medicine. Not alone with the doctors; but with barbers, surgeons, learned Physicians, ‘women, magi cians, alchemists; in the cloist ers with the noble and the common, with the wise and the, simple, I sought for a foundation of medicine which should be unspotted by fables and babble.” His travels carried him over the greater part of Eu rope. At the end of nine years, some of which had been spent as army surgeon and physician in the wars of the day the fame of his cures had become widely known. In 1526 he was ap pointed city physician of Ba sel in Switzerland and made professor at the University in a new department of Chemical Medicine. Its em phasis on chemistry as the important factor in the treatment of disease, repre sented the philosophy of medicine which Paracelsus wished to established. He saw in it an opportu nity for his fighting spirit. Tall,stocky, he had the strongly molded head of a Cicero but the face of an Old Testament Prophet, a man of passionate convic tions, with the sense of a mission. Appreciating the abyss that separated him from the physicians of the day, he decided upon an outright break with the ac cepted order. He denounc ed and derided the old school. His lectures were not in Latin, the accepted language of scholars, but in German, the language of the people. His appeal was to the younger generation. He emphasized continuous ly the importance of chemist ry. As he put it, “I praise the chemical physicians, for they do not consort with loafers or go about gorgeous in satin, silks and velvets, 18 PANORAMA gold rings on their fingers, white gloves on their hands, but they tend their work at the fire patiently day and night. “They do not go prome nading but seek their re creation in the laboratory, wear plain dress and aprons on which to wipe their hands; they thrust their fin gers amongst the coals, into dirt and rubbish and not into golden rings. They are sooty and dirty and hence make little show, they do not gossip with their patients, they well know that words and chatter do not help the sick nor cure them. There fore they busy themselves with working over their fires and learning the art of chem istry.’’ When violent opposition arose, h£ redoubled his at tacks upon the older school in remarks that became more and more virulent. He showed his derision for the ancient books by burning one of them in a public bonfire. Not satisfied with having one good fight on his hands, he undertook another. He sought authority to inspect the offices of the local apo thecaries, with the aim of improving the purity of their drugs and of reducing the price. The opposition which this excited, aroused another important element of pri vileged society against him. His lectures continued for a year and a half and then were suddenly closed by an incident that had no direct connection with his teach ing. This incident led him to attack another important element of society, the ju diciary. A wealthy citizen had long been troubled with a baffling disease. Fearing that it would prove fatal, he offered 100 gulden to Paracelsus to cure him. After a few treat ments, the man recovered, so rapidly that he consider ed 100 gulden as altogether out of proportion to the medical treatment. With some derogatory remarks, he offered to settle for six gul den. Paracelsus was enraged and took the matter to the courts. The Judges, how ever, were as unimpressed as the patient with the value of the medicine used, just a few small pills, resembling nothing so much as sweep ings from a pantry infested September 1965 19 with mice. At this, Para celsus’ sense of injustice burst out of bounds. He denounc ed the Judges in Court in such terms as to warrant charges of treason against him. Warned by his friends, he saw that the game was up. He left Basel that night and resumed the wanderings of this early years. The remaining 13 years of his life found him continual ly unsettled, staying in no one plgtce for long and en countering opposition from those in authority wherever he went. His one outstand ing thought was to reduce to writing his revolutionary philosophy of the use of chemical compounds in the treatment of disease. Of the many manuscripts thaf he wrote, however, few were allowed to be publish ed because of the interfer ence from universities. Oc casionally his fortune was up but it was mostly down. Sometimes he would reside in a town for a year or so, sometimes he was feted at a public dinner as the guest of honor, but for the most part his life was one of wan dering, and his only home the inn where travelers stay 2C ed. It was in Salzburg at such an inn that he died in 1541 at the age of 48, an old man, sick and worn out, his adherents few, his aims seemingly unaccomplished. He was not to perish, how ever, with the death of his body. Unknown to the world at large, his rebellious spirit was still Sputtering, enclosed in his manuscripts. It was they which were de stined to accomplish his re volution. It was indeed 20 years before any search for them was made. An offi cial inquiry from Vienna brought some to light and their publication aroused a demand for others. Soon a complete edition of his books appeared. Then began the second period of Paracelsus’ life, with his books renewing the revolution.' The pen proved to be mightier than the tongue. The number and repute of his adherents in creased. Many of his writings are surprisingly modern in their point of view; a treatise, for instance, on the occupational disease of miners, smelters and metallurgists, emphasiz ing means of prevention as Panorama well as of cure; another on nervous diseases, insisting on physical cause rather than demon origin; another on surgery, opposing the prac tise of closing wounds with poultices and stressing the prevention of external infec tion. It had been his insistence on the value of mineral re medies that aroused the strongest opposition. They included many salts of met als, largely mercury and an timony and also lead, arsenic, copper and iron. The hu man body is a combination of three properties, he main tained, and disease is due to the presence of a foreign parasite which disrupts the normal correlation between the three properties. The function of a medicine is to stimulate and strengthen the vital force within the body so that it may suffocate the parasite. Such conceptions were a complete break with the theories. of the old school, which he discarded as well as their practises of blood letting and purging. It was in chemistry, however, that his real revolution was ef fected. Chemistry as a science had fallen to low estate. Its main attention had been given to alchemy, in the vain aim of transmuting base met als into gold. "The object of chemistry," as Paracelsus put it, "is not to make gold but to prepare medicines.” New leaders in chemistry arose who devoted their lives to this study, the pursuit of medicines. It is their work which makes up the history of chemistry for 150 years after the death of Paracel sus. These leaders were physicians. In time, they found that chemistry is too broad a science to be simply the hand-maiden of medi cine. Their interest was growing in the composition of compounds, in identifying the constituents of matter and in isolating the funda mental elements. They were experimenting so as to un derstand and explain the processes of combustion and of oxidation. The outlook of Pafacelsus, limited as it was, had invi gorated mens’ minds and di rected them to modern science. — General Electric Science Forum. September 1965 21

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