{"title":"[Medical magic of Paracelsus and Paracelsus followers: weapon salve].","authors":"W D Müller-Jahncke","doi":"","DOIUrl":"","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>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.</p>","PeriodicalId":76566,"journal":{"name":"Sudhoffs Archiv; Zeitschrift fur Wissenschaftsgeschichte. Beihefte","volume":" 31","pages":"43-55"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"1993-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"19145660","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"[The therapeutics of Paracelsus with reference to natural philosophy, alchemy and psychology].","authors":"H Schott","doi":"","DOIUrl":"","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>The controversial reception of Paracelsus is still going on. The crucial question is whether he is a man of the Middle Ages or of modern times. It is not possible to give a simple answer. We have to study the writings of Paracelsus within the scientific and cultural context of the Renaissance. This period is characterized by a new concept of natural philosophy. The theory of signature tries to read or translate certain constellations within the natural environment as a secret code. The idea of a sympathetic correspondence between natural bodies or substances implies the possibility of magical healing. A wellknown example is the preparation of the 'weapon salve'. There are two realities of spiritual powers at the same time: demons from the outside of the human body and powers of the mind from its inside which influence the body functions. The natural philosophy of the Renaissance tries to 'naturalize' the demons as a complement of matter. Paracelsus reflects the ideas of his time. The human being has got two bodies: a visible one which belongs to earth and an invisible one which belongs to heaven. The 'philosopher' as a pharmacist and a doctor has to detect the invisible body corresponding with the celestial world (stars, planets) by analysing the manifest astrological signs. The alchemical preparation of remedies has to purify the specific healing substances ('arcana') from the crude material. The pharmacist and doctor just imitates artificially the quasi alchemical metabolic process of nature itself continuing and finishing it. Paracelsus' concept of imagination ('imaginatio') implies a psychosomatic model how far spiritual powers can influence the body functions. Paracelsus stresses radically the importance of suggestions as a source of illness. The synchronical concepts are confusing today. Knowledge and superstition, scientific rationality and irrational speculations come together and can hardly be separated. Nevertheless, at the end of the 20th century we may have more mental relations to this scenario than we are able to realize it at the moment.</p>","PeriodicalId":76566,"journal":{"name":"Sudhoffs Archiv; Zeitschrift fur Wissenschaftsgeschichte. Beihefte","volume":" 31","pages":"25-41"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"1993-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"19145658","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"[The Paracelsus dramas of Martha Sills-Fuchs in the circumstances of Julius Streicher's Society of German Public Health].","authors":"U Benzenhöfer","doi":"","DOIUrl":"","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>Between 1936 and 1939 the Hungaro-Austrian author Martha Sills-Fuchs (1896-?) wrote three plays, in which Theophrast von Hohenheim, called Paracelsus is the main figure. Written for the ideological purposes of the 'Verein Deutsche Volksheilkunde', founded in 1935 by the radical German Nazi-leader Julius Streicher, Paracelsus was--totally neglecting the historical facts--shown as a precursor of Nazism. It could be demonstrated by detailed analysis, that Martha Sills-Fuchs sketched Paracelsus as a racist, a fighter against the jews, a follower of a mystical 'blood and soil'-ideology and as a medical doctor, who had great respect of 'mother nature' (as the Nazis claimed they had).</p>","PeriodicalId":76566,"journal":{"name":"Sudhoffs Archiv; Zeitschrift fur Wissenschaftsgeschichte. Beihefte","volume":" 31","pages":"163-81"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"1993-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"19145712","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"On the origin of the \"six non-natural things\" in Galen.","authors":"L García-Ballester","doi":"","DOIUrl":"","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":76566,"journal":{"name":"Sudhoffs Archiv; Zeitschrift fur Wissenschaftsgeschichte. Beihefte","volume":" 32","pages":"105-15"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"1993-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"19353681","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}