1 8 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY 



phlogiston theory was no longer adequate to explain all known facts 

 were the facts it attempted to explain re-interpreted by the genius of 

 Lavoisier in terms of the modern theory of oxidation and reduction. 



In considering the value and influence of all these now abandoned 

 theories, we should keep in mind that the value of a theory in science 

 at a particular epoch depends not so much upon its absolute truth or 

 reality as upon the extent that it assists in classifying and accounting 

 for observed facts and in stimulating to new observations or experiments. 



It will be seen how the above theories are linked together and how 

 each served for its own century and prepared the way for its successor. 

 Nevertheless, the greatest service which Paracelsus contributed, to the 

 development of chemistry was in the influence which his teaching and 

 his example and his widely published works exerted in battering down 

 the wall of infallible dogma that for centuries had protected the doc- 

 trines of medicine from any important development from the side of its 

 relation to chemistry. His unceasing criticism of the defects of the 

 theory and practise of the ancient authorities, his trenchant arguments 

 for a broader experimental basis for the science, his severe arraignments 

 of the ignorance and venality of the physicians of his time ; his ridicule 

 and defiance of their sacred authorities, together with the constant reit- 

 erations of the knowledge of chemistry as essential to understanding 

 the life processes in health and disease, exerted a powerful influence not 

 indeed so much upon the university faculties or the physicians schooled 

 in their doctrines as upon the younger and more progressive generation 

 of students. Also his appeal to the chemists as such to find in the 

 future of medicine a field of endeavor more promising of success than 

 the as yet unrewarded efforts for the transmutation of the base metals 

 into gold, found much following among those who were interested 

 in the study of chemistry. If we recall that most of the scholarly 

 trained chemists were also physicians, we can understand how this com- 

 bination of medical and chemical aims advocated by Paracelsus found 

 fertile soil among young physicians and medical students as among 

 chemists of less conventional training. 



That this is true is shown, not only by the tremendous vogue of his 

 printed works, but also by the fierce contest which for a century split 

 the medical profession of Europe into hostile and embittered factions 

 of Paracelsists and anti-Paracelsists — adherents of the new chemical 

 medicines and advocates of the older Galenic remedies. 



While the greatest service of Paracelsus was to shatter confidence 

 in dogmas revered for the sake of their authors' great names, the new 

 doctrines which he set up to replace the dogmas he combated were, in 

 many respects, as fantastic and unscientific as the earlier ones. Never- 

 theless, the shattering of the blind faith in traditional teachings, which 

 gave to Paracelsus his popularity and following, necessarily operated 

 also to prevent his new doctrines from becoming considered as sacred 



