598 



NA TURE 



[October i8, 1894 



solids moving through them, is represented in Fig. 3, 

 and the result is no resistance at all ! Surely this case, 

 requiring no calculation, might have been a warning of 

 the extreme wrongness of the doctrine in connection with 

 resistance of fluids against solids moving through them. 

 The nullity of the resistance in the case represented by 

 Fig. •; according to the assumption of a wake of " dead 

 water ' having the same pressure, n, as the distant and 

 near water flowing uniformly in parallel lines, follows 

 immediately from an easily proved theorem which 1 

 stated in the combined meeting of Sections A and G in 

 Oxford last -August, to the effect that the longitudinal 

 component of the pressure on each of the ends, E, e', in 

 Figs. 3, 4., 5, whatever their shapes, and whether " bow " 

 or "stern" provided only that it ends tangentially in a 

 cylindric " mid-body " long in comparison with the 

 greatest transverse diameter of the solid, is equal to IlA, 

 where A is the area of the cross-section of the cylindric 

 part of the solid. 



5 29. Figs. 4 and 5 represent two varieties of a case 

 wholly free from the inconceivable endlessness of Fig. i, 

 and carefully chosen as thoroughly defensible by holders 

 of the doctrine of discontinuity if it has any defensibility 

 at all. I venture to leave it with them for their 

 consideration. Kelvin. 



PARACELSUS} 



THEOPHRASTUS VON HOHENIIKIM was 

 adjudged by most eminent physicians to be a man 

 of genius, indeed of superlative genius. ... By others, 

 who refused to follow him, he was thought to be less de- 

 serving than the cooks, the bellows-blowers, and the 

 charcoal-burners." Thus spoke Lukas Gernler, Rector 

 of the University of Basel, in 1660. Hiiser, in his 

 "History of Medicine," says: "Probably no physician 

 has grasped his life's task with a purer enthusiasm, or 

 devoted himself more faithfully to it, or more fully main- 

 tained the moral worthiness ot his calling, than did the 

 reformer of Einsiedeln." And of this same reformer, 

 Zimmermann, who was physician to Frederick the Great, 

 wrote : " He lived like a pig, looked like a drover, found 

 his greatest enjoyment in the company of the most disso- 

 lute and lowest rabble, and throughout his glorious life 

 he was generally drunk." 



As with these, so with others who have tried to form 

 an estim.Tte of the character of Paracelsus. Some praise 

 him inordinately ; others as inordinately abuse him. It 

 is only men of power and character who arc thus extolled 

 and thus abused. You may neglect an ordinary man ; 

 you must either praise much, or anathematise more, a 

 great man. 



Even as regards the name of the "reformer of Einsie- 

 deln" there are diver^jencies of opinion. Kahlbauni, in 

 the pamphlet cited below, says that he never called, or 

 signed, luniself by the sounding name that was given him 

 by some of his followers, who thought to awe the 

 common people by styling their master " Philippus 

 Aureolus Theophrastus Paracelsus Bombastus ab 

 Hohenheim." For himself, Theophrast von Hohenheim 

 was sulticient. On one occasion, says Kahlbaum, he 

 used the name Aureolus, to distinguish himself from 

 Theophrastus a disciple of Aristotle. The father of 

 Paracelsus was a natural son of a member of the noble 

 family of the Bombasts of Hohenheim, and he adopted 

 their name as his own. In accordance with a fashion of 

 the times, the name von Hohenheim was paraphrased 

 into the classical tongues. Paracelsus, which may per- 



phr 

 Vo- 



: ■ : ein \'or(rag Kchallcn lu Khrcn Thco- 

 1 »ezcmber i^-.^s. im Rcrnoulliaaum 7 1 BimI." 



NO. 130.^, VOL. 50] 



haps be rendered as " belonging to a lofty place," seems 

 to be a kind of Gncco-Latin form of von Hohenheim, the 

 family name of Theophrastus. As von Hohenheim be- 

 came Paracelsus, so Lieber became Erastus, dind Schiitz 

 became Toxitcs; and in modern times the Jewish Neu- 

 mann emerged from the baptismal font as Xeatider. 



Paracelsus was born at Einsiedeln, in the canton of 

 Schwyz, towards the end of the year 1493. He was 

 educated for a time by his father, then by the monks of 

 a convent in the valley of Savon, and then in the 

 University of Basel. After leaving the University, 

 Paracelsus studied under Johannes Trithemius, Abbot 

 of Sponheim, and then under Siegmund Fiiger, a rich 

 nobleman at Schwaz in the Tyrol. Both Trithemius and 

 Fiiger were celebrated adepts and students of occultism, 

 and from them Paracelsus may have imbibed the doctrines 

 which he afterwards developed. Paracelsus was a great 

 wanderer : he visited Tiibingen, Heidelberg, Ingoldstadt, 

 \'ienna, Leipzig, Cologne, Toulouse, Paris, Salerno, and 

 many other towns ; he probably also spent some time in 

 the East, and he is said to have received the stone of 

 wisdom from an adept at Constantinople. Wherever he 

 went he always eagerly sought fresh knowledge. 



In 1 527 he delivered lectures in the University of Basel, 

 with the sanction of the Rector. Paracelsus attempted 

 to institute a method of testing the apothecaries of the 

 town as to their knowledge of the business of making 

 drugs and determining the purity of the materials they dis- i 

 pensed. He spoke scornfully of the decoctions, tinctures, 

 extracts, and syrups that the apothecaries delighted to 

 prepare, calling them all " soup-messes " {Suppcnwust). 

 Of course the dealers in decoctions were up in arms 

 against the man who attacked their trade. Paracelsus 

 also roused the physicians. He taught thai they should 

 go to nature, and not to books, for their knowledge ; he 

 rebelled against the doctrine that was then held by almost 

 every medical man, " the truth is to be found only in the 

 ancients." He boasted that for ten years he had not 

 opened a single book written by a follower of Galen, and 

 he spoke of the Galenists as men who tried to hide their 

 folly under red cloaks ; and. worst of all, he delivered his 

 lectures in (ierman. The physicians and apothecaries .1 

 Basel could not stand these things. Paracelsus u.i 

 abused not only publicly, but also in anonymous pam- 

 phlets ; it is said that one of these productions was found 

 on a Sunday morning affixed to the door of the Minster. 

 with the superscription, " The Shade of Galen 10 Tl'.t" 

 phrastus, better called Kakophrastus." Of theattad, - 

 made on him Paracelsus exclaimed, "These viK 

 ribaldries would raise the ire of a turtle-dove." Matteis 

 came to a head when a Canon of St. Clara, who had been 

 cured by three laudanum pills, refused to pay Paracelsus 

 the 100 florins he had promised, and sent six florin^ 

 instead. Paracelsus sued the Canon for the money, but 

 the court dismissed his suit. In his indignation Para- 1 

 celsus seems to have put himself into the wrong ; hearing 

 that the magistrates had resolved to arrest liim, on the I 

 advice of his friends he fled from Basel in 1528. After 

 wandering about over a great part of ICuiope, Paracelsus 

 found a resting-place at Salzburg, under the protection of 

 the yVrchbishop Ernest. Hut he did not live long to 

 enjoy the repose that had come at last. He died on ] 

 September 24, 1541, after a short illness, in his forty- 

 eighth year. 



It is not possible to form a just estimate either of the 1 

 character or the work of Paracelsus. The evidence is 

 not sufficient, nor sufficiently trustworthy. Nevertheless 

 we can draw some kind of picture of the man, and we 

 are able to trace, in a hesitating way, the effects of his 

 labours and his teaching on the progress of science. The 

 pamphlet by Kahlbaum is concerned with dates, and the 

 outward paraphernalia of the life of Theophrastus. 

 Kopp gives a short account of the work of Paracelsus in 



