[Medical magic of Paracelsus and Paracelsus followers: weapon salve].

Abstract

The doctrine of 'transplantatio morborum' may be considered a branch of the 'magia naturalis'-philosophy which was widespread in the sixteenth century. According to this doctrine, ailments and remedies can be transferred from one body to another. A further example of this field of medicine is gun salve, which we find mentioned particularly in the works of the Paracelsists of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. Even though salve of various types had already been used for some time in the treatment of stab wounds, gun salve was imputed to have magnetic properties which gave rise to 'actio in distans', whereby the smearing of gun salve onto the weapon caused the wound to be healed. An early example of a description of its formula can be found in the first book of the 'Archidoxis magica': one of the works which have been wrongly attributed to Paracelsus. Early in the seventeenth century, this formula for gun salve--frequently with modifications--found its way into the writings of the followers of Paracelsian doctrine: of Oswald Croll, for example, or Rudolph Goclenius. When the concept of 'actio in distans' was propounded, an argument soon developed as to whether gun salve should be classified under 'magia naturalis' or 'magia daemoniaca'. Determined opposition to Goclenius was proferred in the person of Jean Roberti, a Belgian Jesuit who accused the Protestant Goclenius of consorting with demons. A number of treatises appeared in close succession, with Johann Baptist van Helmont emerging as the mediator in the argument. Yet he too came under attack at the hand of the Jesuit Roberti, with the result that, at least by the time Athanasius Kircher had also become embroiled in the debate, the dispute was pursued principally between orthodox Trentino Catholicism and heterodox Protestantism. An analysis of the writings on the subject of gun salve demonstrates how easily a discussion which was originally of a purely medical, scientific nature could lead to a religious controversy in that denominational age.