PARACELSUS (THEOPHRAST BOMBAST VON HOHENHEIM). — Physician, naturalist, and theologian, born at Einsiedeln (Switzerland) on 10 November 1493, died at Salzburg on 24 September 1541. Having graduated in medicine and eager to forge his own path far removed from the traditionalism then prevailing in Arab and Galenic medicine, after teaching his discipline at the University of Basel (1527–28), he spent a decade traveling through Germany, Italy, France, and the Scandinavian regions, reaching as far as Moscow and Constantinople. He did not hesitate to consult common folk—shepherds, gypsies, and peasant women—about their methods of healing ailments, thereby amassing a wide range of clinical and chemical observations.
As a man of the Renaissance, his worldview was inspired by Ficino’s Neoplatonism: man is a microcosm reflecting the macrocosm, the universe created by God, whose Trinity is symbolically mirrored in the three fundamental elements, according to Paracelsus, of the universe and of man: mercury, sulfur, and salt. Salt symbolizes what is solid (its solid residue is ash); sulfur, what is aerial (it is consumed by fire); mercury, what volatilizes when burned. Overseeing these elements is the archeus, or generative force, which resides in the stomach; it is the stomach’s task to balance the aforementioned elements, for good health depends on them and not on the balance of humors according to Galen’s doctrine (v.), of which Paracelsus was an absolute opponent. The physician must therefore be a diligent observer of nature. Paracelsus promoted the study of chemistry applied to biology and is a precursor of modern medicine.
Although he proclaimed that experience was his great teacher, he also believed in the influence of the stars and of plants, which could alter the archeus upon which the health of the body depends. He subscribed to the (magical) principle of “signatures,” namely the efficacy of a plant’s external form in curing diseases, and approved the use of thermal waters, recalling their *principia*.
