2o6 PARACELSUS 



influences which are continually caused in it by in- 

 temperance, gluttony, and morbid tastes; but such a 

 continuous efibrt at resistance will imply a serious loss 

 of vitality, and a time will come when disease will be 

 the result, because the organism requires a period of 

 rest and a renewal of strength to expel the accumulated 

 poisonous elements. If the physician attempts to pre- 

 vent such an expulsion of poisonous elements, he at- 

 tempts a crime against Nature, and may cause the death 

 of his patient. If he weakens in such cases the strength 

 of his patient by abstracting blood, he will become his 

 murderer. Rheumatism and gout, dropsy, and many 

 other diseases are often caused by such accumulations 

 of impure or superfluous elements, and Nature cannot 

 recover until such elements are expelled and the vital 

 power of the organs restored. While the organism is 

 weakened and its vitality on the wane, the germs of 

 other diseases may become developed by attracting in- 

 iurious astral influences, because its power of resistance 

 is enfeebled, and thus one kind of a disease grows out of 

 another " {Be, Ente Veneni). 



3. JEns Natwcz — Diseases arising from the Condition of 

 Man's Nature ; i.e., from Psychological Gaiises. 



The world of corporeal forms is an external expression 

 of the world of mind. Each thing represents an idea ; 

 each star in the sky is a visible symbol of a universal 

 power or principle. A diseased state of the body is 

 often caused by a diseased state of the mind. The 

 majority of diseases are due to moral causes, and the 

 treatment ought to be of a moral kind, and consist in 

 giving instruction and in applying such remedies as 

 correspond to those states of mind which we wish to 

 induce in the patient. 



Modem science knows almost nothing about the cause 

 of the action of medicines, and for this reasoji the use 



