VII 

 FROM PARACELSUS TO HARVEY 



PARACELSUS 



IN the year 1526 there appeared a new lecturer on 

 the platform at the University at Basel a small, 

 beardless, effeminate-looking person who had already 

 inflamed all Christendom with his peculiar philosophy, 

 his revolutionary methods of treating diseases, and 

 his unparalleled success in curing them. A man who 

 was to be remembered in after-time by some as the 

 father of modern chemistry and the founder of modern 

 medicine; by others as madman, charlatan, impostor; 

 and by still others as a combination of all these. This 

 soft -cheeked, effeminate, woman -hating man, whose 

 very sex has been questioned, was Theophrastus von 

 Hohenheim, better known as Paracelsus (1493-1541). 

 To appreciate his work, something must be known 

 of the life of the man. He was born near Maria-Ein- 

 siedeln, in Switzerland, the son of a poor physician 

 of the place. He began the study of medicine under 

 the instruction of his father, and later on came under 

 the instruction of several learned churchmen. At the 

 age of sixteen he entered the University of Basel, but, 

 soon becoming disgusted with the philosophical teach- 

 ings of the time, he quitted the scholarly world of 

 dogmas and theories and went to live among the 



156 



