PHILIPPUS AUREOLUS THEOPHILAS-

TUS BOMARSTUS von Hohenheim, a famous alchemist and enthusiast of the sixteenth century, was the son of a physician, and was born in 1493 at Einsiedeln, a small town of the canton of Schwitz, distant some leagues from Zurich. Although his regular education seems to have been but small, a keen and general curiosity was his characteristic from an early age. While still a mere boy he made himself an adept in the juggling of the magician, the spells of the conjuror, and the arts of the alchemist. He then set out, a penniless vagabond, to search through the world for knowledge. There was scarcely a country in Europe which the feet of the strolling schoolman did not visit. His cool, self-possessed countenance was seen at the universities of Germany, France, and Italy, picking up stray scraps of medical knowledge. His voluble tongue was heard in the villages of Spain, Portugal, Prussia, and Poland, wheeling mystical lore from monks, quacks, jugglers, and old crones. He appeared among the lonely mountains of Bohemia and Sweden, inspecting the labours of the miners. He was even seen accompanying the son of the Khan of Tartary to Constantinople, to learn from a Greek the secret of the tincture or elixir of Trismegistus.

It is not known at what period he returned to Germany; but it appears that, about the age of thirty-three, several remarkable cures which he wrought on persons of distinction gave him such celebrity, that in 1526 he was, on the recommendation of Æcolampadius, called to fill the chair of physic and surgery in the university of Basil. Here Paracelsus commenced his career by burning publicly in the hall the works of Avicenna and Galen; assuring his auditors, that his shoe-ties knew more than these two physicians, that all the universities, and all the writers united were less instructed than the hairs of his beard, and that he should be regarded as the sole monarch of physic. The novelty of his doctrine, the confidence with which he spoke of his success, the power to which he pretended of prolonging his life and curing the most inveterate diseases, Paradise, and the use of the vulgar tongue in his lectures, made him very popular. Many students crowded to hear his prelections. Many patients came to consult him. Among others, Erasmus, who had long suffered from gravel, applied to him; and this circumstance led to a correspondence (which has been preserved) between these two men, who enjoyed such opposite kinds of celebrity. But even at Basil people soon began to discover that the new professor was an impudent and presumptuous quack. Scarcely had a year elapsed when his prelections were deserted. As soon as the novelty wore off, his jargon was found to be incomprehensible, and his empiricism a mere cloak for ignorance. The sottishness of his life also became notorious. Rarely did he appear in his lecture-room without being half-drunk, and seldom did he dictate to his secretaries except under the influence of wine. If called to visit a patient, he first soaked himself with liquor. He had the custom of sleeping in his clothes, and sometimes passed whole nights in low taverns drinking with boors. At length he happened to assail a magistrate with the grossest abuse, and dreading punishment for such an outrage, found himself under the necessity of decamping from Basil towards the end of the year 1527. The close of Paracelsus' career, like the beginning, was spent in ceaseless wandering. He appeared at Colmar in 1528, at Nuremberg in 1529, at St Gall in 1531, at Pfaffers in 1535, and at Augsburg in 1536. He then made some stay in Moravia, where he once more compromised his reputation by the loss of some distinguished patients, and was in consequence obliged to take his departure for Vienna. From that capital he passed into Hungary, and in 1538 appeared at Villach, where he dedicated his Chronicle to the states of Carinthia, in gratitude for the favours which they had bestowed on his father. But his stay here appears to have been short; for in 1540 we find him at Mindelheim, whence he proceeded to Salzburg, the ultimate term of all his wanderings. On the 24th of September 1541 he died in the hospital of St Stephen at that place, in the forty-eighth year of his age, and in a state of abject poverty, notwithstanding he pretended to the possession of the double secret of transmuting metals and prolonging life even to the extent of several centuries.

The medical reputation of Paracelsus is not founded on any actual discoveries, but on the importance which he gave to pharmaceutical chemistry. By his bold language and still bolder practice, he dispelled the prejudices of the Galenical physicians against the productions of the laboratory. Mercury was introduced into general use by him as a cure for the venereal disease. He also seems to have been the first who used opium both as a narcotic and as a remedy for gout, fever, and similar diseases. Paracelsus is likewise notable for his general services to experimental science. How great these services were is described in Dissertatio First, part i., chap. i.

Paracelsus published very few works in his lifetime, and those which are attributed to him exhibit so many contradictions that several of them have been ascribed to his disciples. It would be a useless waste of space to enumerate the titles of all his works: we shall therefore content ourselves with indicating the different complete collections.

1. The German editions, Basil, 1575, in 8vo; ibid. 1589-1590, in 10 vols. 4to; and Strasburg 1603-1618, in 4 vols. folio. 2. The Latin editions, Opera Omnia Medico-Chymico-Chirurgica, Frankfort, 1603, in 10 vols. 4to, and Geneva, 1658, in 3 vols. folio. 3. The French editions, La Grand Chirurgie de Paracelse, Lyons, 1593 and 1603, in 4to; and Montbeliard, 1608, in 8vo. (See Adelung, Histoire de la Folie Humaine, tom. vii.; the Biographie Universelle, article Paracelse; and Sprengel, Histoire Pragmatique de la Médecine, tom. iii.)