THE DAWN OF MODERN CHEMISTRY 15 



tions in medical practise was unpardonable heresy to the guild of 

 physicians. 



Paracelsus must be credited with the ability to appreciate the fail- 

 ings of the profession and with courage and ability with which he ad- 

 dressed himself to the task of breaking down the wall of inertia and 

 tradition behind which the medical profession had entrenched itself. 

 In this task he found but scant assistance from within the fold. On 

 the contrary, he soon aroused the liveliest animosity and the most bitter 

 opposition on the part of medical faculties. But opposition did not dis- 

 courage him. His was the spirit of the propagandist and the fanatic, 

 and antagonism and persecution but intensified the earnestness and 

 the energy with which he labored for the spread of his revolutionary 

 doctrines. That he might appeal to a wider constituency than the 

 hostile academically trained profession, he followed the example of 

 Martin Luther in discarding the use of the Latin language in lectures 

 and writings, and wrote and spoke in his native German. This was 

 also a flagrant offense against professional etiquette and helped to widen 

 the breach between the medical schools and Paracelsus and his pupils 

 and followers. 



Irritated by the attacks of his colleagues, he retorted by publicly 

 burning the Canon of Avicenna, as Luther had burned the papal bull, 

 and similarly to show his contempt for the assumed infallibility of the 

 ancient authorities of medicine. 



The lines of attack of Paracelsus upon the medical doctrines of his 

 time were mainly three. First: Not the authority of the ancient au- 

 thors, but observation and experiment must serve as the basis of medical 

 diagnosis and treatment. Second: The substances of the human body 

 are chemically constituted, the processes of the body are chemical proc- 

 esses and hence chemistry must form one of the foundations of rational 

 medicine. Third : The use of the complex mass of decoctions of rare 

 and costly herbs which served as the basis of the Galenic physicians' 

 practise was not founded on reason, but on superstition. In his view 

 every medicinal plant or mineral has an essential principle or spirit and 

 to find and purify these and to apply them to the cure of diseases is a 

 worthy and important aim of chemistry. 



Many interesting and valuable improvements in medical practise 

 are attributed to Paracelsus, but it is not the early history of medicine 

 that interests us here except as it is involved with the development of 

 chemistry. 



The works of Paracelsus were apparently written between 1526 and 

 his death in 1541, and therefore were written before the publication of 

 the work of the three chemists above mentioned. They are, as collected, 

 a voluminous mass and of heterogeneous character, medical, surgical, 

 philosophical, chemical and theological. 



In harmony with his notions of the value of chemically prepared 



