xia23

Paracelsus and the Modern Medicine [1]

Translated by xia23

Name: Paracelsus

Birth day: 11/11(?)/1493 in Einsiedeln, Switzerland

Death day: 9/25/1551 in Salzburg, Austria

Wife: unknown

Children: unknown

Profession: doctor, natural scientist

The most important day: the day on which he isolated the first medicines from minerals

Philippus Aureolus Paracelsus – his real name was Theophrastus Bombastus von Hohenheim – was born one year after Columbus’ voyage to America. He learned a lot about medicine, alchemy and healing art from his father. At 14 he moved away from his home and went from one place to the other. He went from London to Balkans, from Italy to Germany, from Switzerland to Austria. He probably worked as a doctor and surgeon in many cities, because that was the time of many wars in Europe and there were lots of wounded patients. He worked in a university too, but he had no reliable job.

Paracelsus lived at the time of renaissance in Europe. Other great and famous people are the artist and natural scientist Leonardo da Vinci, the astronomer Nikolaus Copernicus, the religious reformer Martin Luther and the scholar Erasmus von Rotterdam. Due to his revolutionary ideas in medicine Paracelsus was often called as “Luther of the medicine”.

The renaissance marks the beginning of the modern era. People started to rediscover the knowledge of Greek and Rome. Works in Latin and Greek on medicine and natural science were translated in German. Arabic scientists were especially influential in the field of medicine and their works were widely translated as a result. For many scientists this rediscovery of the old knowledge was as interesting as the new world discovered by Columbus.

Through Gutenberg’s printing press, lots of books with these old and new ideas were printed and well spread in the whole Europe. The printing press first printed the ancient books, then the books of new scientists. In 1571, for example, the first handbook for farmers came on the market; in 1578 people could buy a book on herbs by Adamus Lonicerus.

Paracelsus himself wrote over 200 books, many of them were about the problems in medicine at his time. One of his most interesting books was on the diseases of people in the mines [2]. Paracelsus’ “On the mountain sickness or mountain disease [3]: three books” was the first book on one disease which man could get on his job [2]. One of his famous books “The great surgery book” (1536) dealt with the treatment of gunpowder wound – Paracelsus really knew so much about it, because he had to treat many wounded people from the wars at his time. He also wrote on the psychological illnesses. In his book “On medicine” he wrote on how man could and must live healthily with nature. He was one of the first eco-doctors.

Paracelsus was as revolutionary as Martin Luther. Luther had translated Bible from Latin to German, so everyone could read it. He also wanted to reform the church. Like Luther, Paracelsus also wrote his books in German instead of Latin. That was something the other doctors at his time disliked at all. They thought that books on medicine should be in Latin. For that Paracelsus spoke against the medicine of Greek and Rome in his book; as Luther wanted to reform the church Paracelsus also wanted to reform the ancient medicine. Paracelsus had ideas to utilize minerals and metals as medicine, whereas the ancient medicine had only seen plants as medicine. To fight diseases he only needed simple, indigenous remedies, because he believed every country has its own therapeutic herbs, which function as the best against the diseases in its country.

Paracelsus is really the founder of the “chemotherapy”, because he utilized mineral and metals in medicine. He is also the founder of “iatrochemistry” [4], a part of chemistry, which man produces medicine.

Paracelsus’ interests in connection between chemistry and medicine had spread over the whole Europe until the mid-17^th century. Even today scientists are still fascinated by his ideas and hold a conference in Washington, D. C. at his 500th birthday in 1993.

[1]. p. 279-280.  Paracelsus und die moderne Medizin. Deutsch Aktuell 3. EMC/Paradigm Publishing, Saint Paul, Minnesota, 2005

[2]. For coal miners, the disease is pneumoconiosis or “black lung disease”.

[3]. Mountain sickness, is related to lower oxygen. There might be a confusion between the two diseases ([2] and [3]) from the author.

[4]. The term "iatrochemie" translates to "iatrochemistry" in English. Iatrochemistry is a historical branch of chemistry that focuses on the chemical processes related to medicine and the study of diseases. Gemini.google.com translated.

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