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The Paracelsians and the Chemists: the Chemical Dilemma in Renaissance Medicine

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The Paracelsians and the Chemists: the Chemical Dilemma in Renaissance Medicine Clio Medica, Vol7, No.3, pp. 185-199, 1972 The Paracelsians and the Chemists: the Chemical Dilemma in Renaissance Medicine ALLEN G. DEBUS* Accounts of Renaissance iatrochemistry have traditionally emphasized the con­ flict over the introduction of chemically prepared medicines. The importance of this cannot be denied, but the texts of the period indicate that this formed only part of a broader debate involving the relationship of chemistry to medicine - and indeed, to nature as a whole. The Paracelsian chemists argued forcefully that much - if not all - of the fabric of ancient medicine should be scrapped, and that a new medicine based on a chemical philosophy of the universe should be offered in its place. For them a proper understanding of the macrocosm and the microcosm would indicate to the true physician the correct cures for diseases. Others - who spoke with no less conviction of the benefits of chemistry for medicine - disagreed with the Paracelsians over the application of chemistry to cosmological problems. For these chemists the introduction of the new remedies and the Paracelsian principles were useful and necessary for the physician, but they were properly to be used along with the traditional Aristotelian-Galenic conceptual scheme. The purpose of the present paper is to give some indication of the deep divisions that separated chemical physicians from each other in this crucial period. By way of background it should be noted that most chemical physicians of the sixteenth and the seventeenth centuries did not consider their work to be entirely new. They openly drew upon the writings of Islamic physicians and alchemists as well as a host of Latin scholars of the Middle Ages who had turned to chemical operations as a basic tool for the preparation of medicines. It is this Medieval tradition of medical chemistry -recently evaluated by Wolfgang Schneider and Robert Multhaufl - that had borne fruit in the Renaissance "distillation books" of Hieronymus Brunschwig, Philipp Ulstadius, and Conrad Gesner. The late Medieval and Renaissance alchemists sought no quarrel with the ancients. In this they differed greatly from Paracelsus - the very nature of whose writings ensured a conflict with the medical establishment. He spoke at length of the need for new observations and he bitterly attacked the moribund medical schools of his day. For Paracelsus medicine was not to be chemistry or alchemy alone, but the basis for such an interpretation existed since alchemical themes ran throughout the body of his writings. This has been clearly demonstrated in the • The author gratefully acknowledges his support for this research from the National Institutes of Healrh -. Research Grant LM-00046. 185 186 Allen G. Debus research of Walter Pagel. 2 Alchemy was to be one of the four pillars of medicine - and this alchemy was to include a chemical cosmology through which both macrocosmic and microcosmic phenomena might be interpreted. Man and his ailments were clearly to be understood in conjunction with the physician's knowledge of the divine chemistry of the greater world. The Paracelsian Chemists Paracelsus had published little during his lifetime and one can only speak of a European "Paracelsian debate" three decades after his death when these newly published texts began to be subjected to criticism. Jacques Gohory (Leo Suavius) (c. 1520-1576)3 and Peter Severinus (1542-1602)4 prepared syntheses lauding Paracelsus in 1568 and 1571. In contrast, Thomas Erastus (Liebler) (1524-1583) reacted with alarm to this medical heresy in his Disputationes de Medicina Nova Paracelsi published in four volumes between 1572 and 1574 while Johannes Guintherius of Andernach (1505-1574) sought to integrate the work of the GUENTHER, Johann (1487 - 1674) Portrait from: De medicina veteri et nova facienda commentarius secundus. Baste: Ex off. Henricpetrina, 1571. Wellcome Catalogue 2969. Neg. WHML 6925 By courtesy of 'The Wellcome Trustees'. Paracelsians with that of the Galenists in a publication that appeared in 1571. 5 All of these authors were concerned about the use of chemistry by physicians and they disagreed fundamentally over its meaning and the extent to which it should be employed in medicine. .
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