Paracelsian.book Page i Monday, December 16, 2002 12:42 PM Paracelsian Moments Paracelsian.book Page ii Monday, December 16, 2002 12:42 PM Habent sua fata libelli Sixteenth Century Essays & Studies Series General Editor Raymond A. Mentzer University of Iowa Editorial Board of Sixteenth Century Essays & Studies Elaine Beilin Roger Manning Framingham State College Cleveland State University, Emeritus Miriam U. Chrisman Mary B. McKinley University of Massachusetts, Emerita University of Virginia Barbara B. Diefendorf Helen Nader Boston University University of Arizona Paula Findlen Charles G. Nauert Stanford University University of Missouri, Emeritus Scott H. Hendrix Theodore K. Rabb Princeton Theological Seminary Princeton University Jane Campbell Hutchison Max Reinhart University of Wisconsin–Madison University of Georgia Christiane Joost-Gaugier John D. Roth University of New Mexico, Emerita Goshen College Ralph Keen Robert V. Schnucker University of Iowa Tr uman State University, Emeritus Robert M. Kingdon Nicholas Terpstra University of Wisconsin, Emeritus University of Toronto Merry Wiesner-Hanks University of Wisconsin–Milwaukee front matter.fm Page iv Wednesday, December 18, 2002 9:06 AM Copyright © 2002 by Truman State University Press 100 East Normal Street, Kirksville, Missouri 63501-4221 USA http://tsup.truman.edu All rights reserved Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Paracelsian moments : science, medicine, and astrology in early modern Europe / Edited by Gerhild Scholz Williams and Charles D. Gunnoe, Jr. p. cm. — (Sixteenth century essays & studies ; v. 64) Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 1-931112-11-8 (pbk. : alk. paper) — ISBN 1-931112-12-6 (casebound : alk. paper) 1. Paracelsus, 1493–1541. 2. Science—Europe—History—16th century. I. Scholz Williams, Gerhild. II. Gunnoe, Charles D., 1963– III. Sixteenth Century Studies Conference (1999 : St. Louis, Mo.) IV. Series. R147.P2 P385 2002 509.031—dc21 2002018742 Cover art: Paracelsus Surgery Macrocosmos, from Paracelsus, Der grossen Wundarzney and Prognostications: Rest, from Paracelsus, Prophecien und Weissagungen, permission of Becker Medical Library, Washington University, St. Louis, Missouri. Cover design by Lechelle Calderwood Printed by Thomson-Shore, Dexter, Michigan Set in Adobe Minion with FCaslon display type No part of this work may be reproduced or transmitted in any format by any means, elec- tronic or mechanical, including photocopying and recording or by an information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher. ∞The paper in this publication meets or exceeds the minimum requirements of the Amer- ican National Standard—Permanence of Paper for Printed Library Materials, ANSI Z39.48 (1984). Paracelsian.book Page vii Monday, December 16, 2002 12:42 PM Contents ACKNOWLEDGMENTS. .ix INTRODUCTION . .xi PARACELSIANA PARACELSUS’S BIOGRAPHY AMONG HIS DETRACTORS . 3 Charles D. Gunnoe, Jr. PARACELSUS AND THE BOUNDARIES OF MEDICINE IN EARLY MODERN AUGSBURG . 19 Mitchell Hammond TO BE OR NOT TO BE A PARACELSIAN . 35 Something Spagyric in the State of Denmark Jole Shackelford “A SPEDIE REFORMATION” . 71 Barber-Surgeons, Anatomization, and the Reformation of Medicine in Tudor London Lynda Payne SEEING “MICROCOSMA” . 93 Paracelsus’s Gendered Epistemology Hildegard Elisabeth Keller PARACELSUS ON BAPTISM AND THE ACQUIRING OF THE ETERNAL BODY . 117 Dane Thor Daniel PARACELSUS AND VAN HELMONT ON IMAGINATION. 135 Magnetism and Medicine before Mesmer Heinz Schott Paracelsian.book Page viii Monday, December 16, 2002 12:42 PM NATURAL MAGIC AND NATURAL WONDERS UNHOLY ASTROLOGY. 151 Did Pico Always View It That Way? Sheila Rabin WINE AND OBSCENITIES . 163 Astrology’s Degradation in the Five Books of Rabelais Dené Scoggins ROBERT BOYLE, “THE SCEPTICAL CHYMIST,” AND HEBREW . 187 Michael T. Walton JOHANNES PRAETORIUS . 207 Early Modern Topography and the Giant Rübezahl Gerhild Scholz Williams DEMONS, NATURAL MAGIC, AND THE VIRTUALLY REAL . 223 Visual Paradox in Early Modern Europe Stuart Clark SELECTED BIBLIOGRAPHY OF PARACELSIANA AND EARLY MODERN SCIENCE . 247 INDEX . 257 Paracelsian.book Page ix Monday, December 16, 2002 12:42 PM Acknowledgments This volume presents a selection of essays chosen from the History of Science presentations at the annual Six- teenth Century Studies Conference in St. Louis (Octo- ber 1999). The panels centered around Paracelsus and were held in conjunction with activities highlighting the fine collection of Paracelsiana at Washington University’s Medical School Library. We wish to express our appreciation to Lilla Vekerdy, medical librarian, for her help in selecting the cover illustration, and for arrang- ing a stimulating exhibit of primary and secondary materials associated with Paracelsus. We are grateful to the anonymous readers for their criticisms and helpful sug- gestions; the volume owes much to their diligence and expertise. We wish to thank Julian Paulus for his contributions to the selected bibliography devoted to Paracelsus and for the history of science, which was added to provide a reference tool for the reader. Our most heartfelt appreciation goes to Michaela Giesen- kirchen and John Morris for their patient queries to contributors and editors and their expert editing. Furthermore, the editors wish to thank Washington Univer- sity and Aquinas College for the financial support that helped bring the essays to publication. Paracelsian.book Page x Monday, December 16, 2002 12:42 PM Paracelsus Surgery Macrocosmos, from Paracelsus, Der grossen Wundarzney: das erst Buch (Augsburg: Steyner, 1536), xxii verso, permission of Becker Medical Library, Washington University, St. Louis, Missouri. Paracelsian.book Page xi Monday, December 16, 2002 12:42 PM Introduction In 1527, Theophrastus Bombastus von Hohenheim, better known today as Paracelsus, a peripatetic physi- cian with somewhat doubtful university credentials, made his way to Basel, Switzerland. Basel was at the center of the Northern Renaissance, housing a vital pub- lishing trade and serving as the sometime residence of Desiderius Erasmus, the prince of the humanists. The Reforma- tion, too, was beginning to make inroads in the town, though the old faith still had support among the university faculty and wealthy burghers. In matters of religious controversy, the Baselers had not fully shown their hand, and would not make any definitive move for some time. Despite sympathies for the radical reformers, Paracelsus never left the Catholic faith. He did, however, reject what he called the Mauerkirche, the walled church, in favor of a more direct, evangelical relationship with God.1 Almost upon his arrival in Basel, Paracelsus scored a major success by effecting a cure on the wounded leg of the famed printer Johannes Froben. From this triumph, our physician became the toast of the town. Heedless of the resis- tance of the hidebound faculty members but spurred on by influential humanists, the town council made a place for him at the city’s university. There are moments in history when person, place, and time fall into sublime synchronicity. Paracelsus in Basel during 1527 appeared to be such a juncture. Paracelsus, however, did not carefully plot his career strategies as to how best to make an impact on the Basel academic scene. He continued to construct his philos- ophy of medicine based on experience and curiosity (experientia and curiositas) 1. Gerhild Scholz Williams, “Paracelsus,” in The Oxford Encyclopedia of the Reformation (New York: Oxford University Press, 1996), 3:212. xi Paracelsian.book Page xii Monday, December 16, 2002 12:42 PM Introduction and to explore chemical cures in lectures at Basel University, delivered in his native German. As if the latter fact alone were not enough to proclaim his scientific and medical iconoclasm, he allegedly destroyed the Canon of Avicenna at a public book burning on 24 June. This attack on the medical authorities of antiquity signaled to the medical establishment in Basel and beyond that a revolution in medicine was afoot, a revolution that was to raise violent clashes among the university-trained physicians. Still, Paracelsus did enjoy support among some of the brightest minds of the European Renaissance. If this was Paracelsus’s moment, he squandered it recklessly. The academic opposition gathered its strength; events took a bad turn. Froben died. The offended university faculty and their allies struck back, ridiculing Paracelsus and his new science in print as “Cacophrastus.” Furthermore, Paracelsus got into a financial dispute with a wealthy burgher over the amount owed for treatment. As he had done so many times before, Paracelsus resorted to flight to extract himself from these increasing difficulties. His wanderings through a good part of central Europe would continue until his death in 1541, at which point only a fraction of his vast output of writings had been printed.2 Paracelsus’s notoriety preceded his fame by several decades. His moment was not to come during his lifetime, but, to the extent that there was a genuine Paracelsian moment, it began during the second half of the sixteenth century. It expanded to a movement that continued to flourish into the early decades of the seventeenth century. Scholars such as Michael Toxites, Adam von Bodenstein, and Gerhard Dorn scoured central Europe in search of Paracelsus’s manuscripts. By 1570 a wide-ranging Paracelsian revival was under way. Learned academics such as Theodor Zwinger and Gunther von Andernach began to take Paracelsus