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PARACELSUS. 



PAREDES, DIEGO GARCIA DE. 



but lived chiefly in taverns, where he scarcely ever took off his clothes 

 by day or night ; and though he had hitherto lived a very temperate 

 life, and taken nothing but water, he now spent whole nights in 

 drinking with the lowest company. He still maintained his reputation 

 by occasionally effecting gome extraordinary cures by means of hia 

 powerful medicines, but his failures were equally conspicuous. At 

 last, after passing through many vicissitudes, the boasted possessor of 

 the philosopher's stone and the elixir of life died in great poverty in 

 Ii41, at Salzburg, in the Tyrol, at the early age of forty-ei^ht. 



As might be expected, Paracelsus has been as much extolled by his 

 admirers aa he was despised and abused by his enemies. With respect 

 to his moral and religious character, there seems to have been nothing 

 to admire : he was totally destitute of piety, and his theological 

 opinions (if they deserve to be called such) were a confused mixture 

 of infidelity, heresy, and absurdity ; in gluttony and drunkenness, in 

 lying and charlatanism, in vanity and arrogance, he has been seldom 

 equalled, and never surpassed. If any one is inclined to think this 

 judgment of him too harah and severe he will find it abundantly con- 

 firmed by the passages quoted from his own writings and those of his 

 personal acquaintances by Le Clerc, in the Appendix to his ' Hist, de 

 la Mid.' His intellectual talents and acquirements are not much 

 more deserving of respect ; but in order to estimate these fully he 

 must be considered 1, as a chemist ; 2, as a physician ; and 3, as a 

 philosopher. 1. As a chemist (though probably the ablest of big time), 

 he falls far short of big predecessor Basil Valentine. " His original 

 discoveries," says Brande, in his 'Manual of Chemistry,' "are few 

 and unimportant, and his great merit lies in the boldness and 

 assiduity which he displayed in introducing chemical preparations 

 into the ' Materia Medica," and in subduing the prejudices of the 

 Galenical physicians against the productions of the laboratory. But 

 though we can fix upon no particular discovery on whicli to found 

 his merit* as a chemist, and though his writings are deficient in the 

 acumen and knowledge displayed by several of his contemporaries and 

 immediate successors, it is undeniable that he gave a most important 

 turn to pharmaceutical chemistry ; and calomel, with a variety of 

 mercurial and antimonial preparations, as likewise opium, came 

 into general use." He pretended (as was hinted above) to possess the 

 secret of the philosopher's etone and the elixir of life, besides various 

 other preparations called by strange aud pompous names, such as the 

 'Quintessence,' the 'Arcanum of Vitriol,' 'Azoth,' Ac. : the composition 

 of hia ' Laudanum ' he is supposed never to have revealed, and in the 

 short dictionary at the end of his works we are merely told that 

 ' Laudanum Theophr. Paracelai est medicina laude digna, ex duabus 

 tantum rebus constane, quibus excellentiores in mundo reperiri 

 nequeunt, qn& morbos omnes fere curabat." 2. As a physician he 

 cannot lay claim to any scientific skill ; and though his epitaph declares 

 that " Leprarn, Podagrain, HydropUim, aliaque insauabilia corporis 

 contagia mirifica arte iustulit," we are told on the other hand that 

 " he killed many of his patients, or at least made them worse than 

 they were before." (Libavius, ' Hist. Panac. Amwald.,' quoted by Le 

 Clerc.) His medical writings are full either of credulity or imposture. 

 He says that it is possible for a man alone to create a living child 

 resembling in every respect those born of women, only much smaller ; 

 ami he gives directions for doing so, too absurd and indecent to be 

 quoted. He explains minutely the analogy which he supposes to exist 

 between the ' Macrocosmns,' or external world, and the ' Microcosmus,' 

 or human body ; and eays that every physician ought to be able to 

 point out in man the east and west, the signs of the zodiac, &c. 

 (' Paragranum,' Tract 2.) He says that the human body consists of 

 nothing but sulphur, mercury, and salt (' Paramirum,' lib. i.) He 

 professes his belief in magic (though in this he was not more credulous 

 than hie contemporaries), and boasts of having received letters from 

 Galen, and of having disputed with Avicenna in the vestibule of the 

 infernal regions. (' Paragranum,' Proof.) Some of his most remarkable 

 cures were cases of syphilitic aud other obstinate ulcers, and his 

 ' Chirurgia Magna ' and ' Chirurgia Minor ' have been more esteemed 

 than perhaps any of his other works. In extracting an arrow or other 

 weapon from a wound, he recommends (when all other means fail) the 

 use of certain verba, comtdlala, which will infallibly succeed. 3. With 

 respect to bis philosophical (or 'theosophical') opinions, it is very 

 difficult to discover what they were, not only from the great obscurity 

 of the subject-matter of his works, but also from the new words that 

 he invent*, and still more from the peculiar and arbitrary senses that 

 he puts upon those in common use. Iliadus, Iliaster, Idechtram, 

 Domor, Cagaatrum, Evester, Trarames, Dualech, Ac., are some of those 

 invented by himself, and of which no intelligible explanation is to be 

 found. " He made great use," says Tenncmann (' Manual of Philos.') 

 " of the cabalistic writers, whom he endeavoured to render popular, 

 and expounded with a lively imagination. Among his principal mystic 

 notions were those of au internal illumination, an emanation from the 

 Divinity, the universal harmony of all things, the influence of the stars 

 on the sublunar world, and the vitality of the elements, which he 

 regarded a spirits encased in the viible bodies presented to our 

 senses." " These are," says Hallam (' Liter, of Kurope ') " the silvains 

 (sylphs), undines or nymphs, guomes, and salamanders. It is thug 

 observable that he first gave these names, which rendered afterwards 

 the Koncrucian fables so celebrated. These live with man, and some- 

 times (except the salamanders) bear children to him ; they know future 



events, and reveal them to us ; they are also guardians of hidden 

 treasures, which may be obtained by their means." 



The works of Paracelsus, part of which are written in German aud 

 part in Latin, and of which a complete list is given by Haller in his 

 'Biblioth. Medic. Pract.,' were published in Latin at Frankfurt, in 10 

 vols. 4to, 1603 ; and in German, by Huser, at Basel, also iu 10 vols, 

 4to, 1589-90. 



PARADI'SI, COUNT AGOSTINO, was the great-nephew of Agos- 

 tino Paradisi, author of the ' Ateueo dell" Uomo nobile.' He was born 

 at Vignola, in the territory of Reggio, April 25th, 1736, aud was edu- 

 cated at the Collegio Nazareno at Home, on returning from which he 

 prosecuted his studies diligently, and, among the rest, applied himself 

 to that of English literature. His talent for poetry displayed itself at 

 an early age, and when only sixteen he was admitted member of an 

 ' accademia ' at Reggio, where both his poetical compositions and his 

 dissertations obtained for him great distinction. He afterwards visited 

 Genoa, Venice, and Bologna, in which last place he became acquainted 

 with the Marquis Albergati Capacelli, aud shared with him in some of 

 his dramatic compositions. On the death of the Abbate Salandri in 

 1771, Count Firmian, the Austrian minister, invited Paradisi to accept 

 the office of perpetual secretary in the academy of Mantua ; but the 

 Duke of Modena appointed him professor of civil economy and lecturer 

 on belles-lettres iu the university of that city; and afterwards (1776) 

 bestowed on him the title of count. During the eight years that he 

 filled that chair, his lectures obtained for him the applause not only 

 of his own countrymen but of many eminent foreigners. In 1780 he 

 returned to Reggio, where he held a distinguished civil employment, 

 devoting bis leisure to literary pursuits ; but his health now began to 

 decline, and he was attacked with dropsy iu the chest, which disorder 

 carried him off, February 19th, 1783, iu hia forty-seventh year. 



Besides his 'versi sciolti,' or poems in blank verse, which are 

 esteemed both for their elegance of style and their moral value, he 

 published three volumes of tragedies, translated from the French, 

 including an original one entitled ' Le Epitidi." Among hia prose 

 writings, hia e"loge on Montecuculi is considered a masterpiece of its 

 kind. His ' Saggio gopra 1'Entuaiasmo -nelle Belle Arti,' shows hia 

 ability as a philosophical critic; while his knowledge of jurisprudence 

 and civil economy is displayed in his ' Parere Economico," aud other 

 productions of that kind. 



PARE, AMBROSE, the first and most eminent of the old French 

 surgeons, was born in 1509 at Laval, in the province of Maine and the 

 modern department of Mayenne. Hia parents were poor, and his 

 education was neglected ; but having one day witnessed the operation 

 of lithotomy, he went immediately to Paris and commenced the study 

 of surgery. He afterwards accompanied the French army during 

 several campaigns in Italy, and gained so much reputation that in 

 1552 he was appointed surgeon in ordinary to King Henri II. He 

 held the same office under Francis II., Charles IX., and Henri III., 

 until his death, at the age of eighty-one, in 1590. He appears to have 

 been a pioua and excellent man, and having been educated in the 

 reformed church, he steadily refused to leave it. During the horrible 

 massacre of St. Bartholomew's he owed his life to his professional 

 reputation and the personal friendship of the king, whom, as he tells us 

 himself, he had especially obliged by having saved him from the con- 

 sequences of a wound accidentally inflicted on the median nerve in 

 venesection. (' Opera Chirurg.,' lib. ix., cap. 38.) Brantome says, in 

 his ' Memoirs,' that on the evening of the massacre the king sent for 

 him into his bed-room, and told him not to stir out, saying that it was 

 not right to murder a man who was so useful to the world (torn. iv.). 



The French writers justly consider Pare' to be the father of modern 

 surgery, and say that he holds the same rank in thia branch of the 

 profession as Hippocrates does in medicine. He was not satisfied with 

 blindly following the precepts of his predecessors, but by diligent 

 observation and reflection made several important changes in the mode 

 of treatment, which have been, followed to the present day. One of 

 his greatest reforms was in the treatment of gun-shot wouuds, into 

 which it was the custom at that time to pour boiling oil ; he was also 

 the first person who left off the barbarous practice of cauterisiug a 

 limb to stop the haemorrhage after an amputation. He was the first 

 who recommended the extraction of the foetus by the feet in cases of 

 difficult parturition (lib. xxiii., cap. 26). He says that in cases of 

 asoites the fluid should not be drawn off all at once after paracentesia 

 (lib. vii., cap. 12). Although he was not the discoverer of the art of 

 tying the blood-vegsels, he at least restored the practice, pointed out 

 its advantages, and gave some excellent rules for performing the opera- 

 tion. His works are chiefly valuable and remarkable for the great 

 number of facts aud cases contained iu them, aud for the care with 

 which he avoids giving any directions resting merely upon theories 

 and unsupported by observations. They were published in a collected 

 form at Paris, 1585, fol., in French, and are divided into twenty-eight 

 books, of which the first five are chiefly on anatomical and physiologi- 

 cal subjects. There are several other editions of hia whole works, 

 which have also been translated into Latin (Paris, 15S2, fol.), iu twenty- 

 six books, into English (London, 1578, fol.), into Dutch (Leid. 1604, 

 fol.), and into German (Frankf., 1604, fol.). 



PARE'DES, DIEGO GARCIA DE, a celebrated Spanish general, 

 commonly called ' the Spanish Bayard,' was born of noble parents, at 

 Truxillo, a town of Estretnadura iu 1468. Having early embraced 



