PARACELSUS was born, as he himself writes, in
the year 1494, in a village in Switzerland called Hoenheym (q. d. ab alto
nido) two miles distant from Zurich. His father was a natural son of a
great master of the Teutonic order, and had been brought up to medicine,
which he practised accordingly in that obscure corner. He was master of
an excellent and copious library, and is said to have become eminent in
his art, so that Paracelsus always speaks of him with the highest deference,
and calls him laudatissimus medicus in eo vico. Of such a father did Paracelsus
receive his first discipline. After a little course of study at home he
was
committed to the care of Trithemius, the celebrated abbot of Spanheim,
who had the character of an adept himself, and wrote of the Cabala, being
at that time a reputed magician. Here he chiefly learnt languages and letters;
after which he was removed to Sigismund Fugger to learn medicine, surgery,
and chymistry; all these masters, especially
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the last, Paracelsus ever speaks of with great veneration;
so that he was not altogether so rude and unpolished as is generally imagined.
Thus much we learn from his own writings, and especially the preface to
his Lesser Surgery, where he defends himself against his accusers. At twenty
years of age he undertook a journey through Germany and Hungary , visiting
all the mines of principal note, and contracting an acquaintance with the
miners and workmen, by which means he learnt every thing, relative to metals,
and the art thereof: in this enquiry he shewed an uncommon assiduity and
resolution. He gives us an account of the many dangers he had run from
earthquakes, falls of stones, floods of water, cataracts, exhalations,
damps, heat, hunger, and thirst; and every where takes occasion to insist
on the value of an art acquired on such hard terms.
The same inclination carried him as far as Muscovy, where
as he was in quest of mines near the frontiers of Tartary he was taken
prisoner by that people, and carried before the great Cham ; during his
captivity there he learnt various secrets, till, upon the Cham's sending
an embassy to the Grand Signior, with his own son at the head of it, Paracelsus
was sent along with him in quality of companion. On this occasion he came
to Constantinople in the twenty-eighth year of his age, and was there taught
the secret of the philosopher's stone by a generous Arabian, who made him
this noble present, as he calls it, Azoth. This incident we have from Helmont
only; for Paracelsus himself, who is ample enough on his other travels,
says nothing of his captivity. At his return from Turkey he practised as
a surgeon in the Imperial army, and performed many excellent cures therein;
indeed, it cannot be denied but that he was excellent in that art, of which
his great surgery, printed in folio, will ever be a standing monument.
At his return to his native country he assumed the title of utriusque medicinæ
doctor , or doctor both of external and internal medicine or surgery; and
grew famous in both, performing far beyond what the practice of that time
could pretend to; and no wonder, for medicine was then in a poor condition;
the practice and the very language was all Galenical and Arabic; nothing
was inculcated but Aristotle, Galen, and the Arabs; Hippocrates was not
read; nay, there was no edition of his writings, and scarce was he ever
mentioned. Their theory
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consisted in the knowledge of the four degrees, the temperaments,
&c. and their whole practice was confined to venesection, purgation,
vomiting, clysmata, &c. Now, in this age a new disease had broke out,
and spread itself over Europe, viz. the venereal disorder; the common Galenic
medicines had here proved altogether ineffectual; bleeding, purging, and
cleansing medicines were vain; and the physicians were at their wit's end.
Jac Carpus, a celebrated anatomist and surgeon at Bolonge, had alone been
master of the cure, which was by mercury administered to raise a salivation;
he had attained this secret in his travels through Spain and Italy, and
practised it for some years, and with such success and applause, that it
is incredible what immense riches this one nostrum brought him (it is said
upon good authority, that in one year he cleared six thousand pistoles)
he acknowledged himself, that he did not know the end of his own wealth;
for the captains, merchants, governors, commanders, &c. who had brought
that filthy disease from America, were very well content to give him what
sums he pleased to ask to free them from it.--Paracelsus about this time
having likewise learnt the properties of mercury, and most likely from
Carpus, who undertook the same cure but in a very different manner; for
whereas Carpus did all by salivation--Paracelsus making up his preparation
in pills attained his ends in a gentler manner. By this he informs us he
cured the itch, leprosy, ulcers, Naples disease, and even gout, all which
disorders were incurable on the foot of popular practice, and thus was
the great basis laid for all his future fame and fortune.
Paracelsus, thus furnished with arts, and arrived at a
degree of eminence beyond any of his brothers in the profession, was invited
by the curators of the university of Bazil to the chair of professor of
medicine and philosophy in that university. The art of printing was now
a new thing, the taste for learning and art was warm 1,
and the magistracy of Bazil were very industrious
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in procuring professors of reputation from all parts of
the world. They had already got Desid Erasmus, professor of theology, and
J. Oporinus professor of the Greek tongue; and now in 1527 Paracelsus was
associated in the 33d year of his age. Upon his first entrance into that
province, having to make a public speech before the university, he posted
up a very elegant advertisement over the doors inviting every body to his
doctrine. At his first lecture he ordered a brass vessel to be brought
into the middle of the school, where after he had cast in sulphur and nitre,
in a very solemn manner he burnt the books of Galen and Avicenna , alledging
that he had held a dispute with them in the gates of hell, and had fairly
routed and overcome them. And hence he proclaimed, that the physicians
should all follow him; and no longer style themselves Galenists, but Paracelsists
.--"Know," says he, "physicians, my cap has more learning in it than all
your heads, my beard has more experience than your whole academies: Greeks,
Latins, French, Germans, Italians, I will be your king."
While he was here professor he read his book De Tartaro,
de Gradibus, and De compsitionibus, in public lectures, to which he added
a commentary on the book De Gradibus; all these he afterwards printed at
Bazil for the use of his disciples; so that these must be allowed for genuine
writings; about the same time he wrote De Calculo, which performance Helmont
speaks of with high approbation.
Notwithstanding his being professor in so learned an university
he understood but a very little Latin ; his long travels, and application
to business, and disuse of the language, had very much disqualified him
for writing or speaking therein; and his natural warmth rendered him very
unfit for teaching at all. Hence, though his auditors and disciples were
at first very numerous, yet they very much fell off, and left him preaching
to the walls. In the mean time he abandoned himself to drinking at certain
seasons; Oporinus, who was always near him, has the good nature to say,
he was never sober; but that he tippled on from morning to night, and from
night to morning, in a continual round. At length he soon became weary
of his professorship, and after three years continuance therein relinquished
it, saying, that
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no language besides the German was proper to reveal the
secrets of chymistry in.
After this he again betook himself to an itinerant life,
travelling and drinking, and living altogether at inns and taverns, continually
flushed with liquor, and yet working many admirable cures in his way. In
this manner he passed four years from the 43d to the 47th year of his life,
when he died at an inn at Saltzburg, at the sign of the White Horse, on
a bench in the chimney-corner. Oporinus relates, that after he had put
on any new thing, it never came off his back till he had worn it into rags;
he adds, that notwithstanding his excess in point of drinking, he was never
addicted to venery.--But there is this reason for it: when he was a child,
being neglected by his nurse, a hag gelded him in a place where three ways
met, and so made a eunuch of him; accordingly in his writings he omits
no opportunity of railing against women.--Such is the life of Paracelsus;
such is the immortal man, who sick of life retired into a corner of the
world, and there supports himself with his own Quintessence of Life.
In his life time he only published three or four books,
but after his death he grew prodigiously voluminous, scarce a year passing
but one book or other was published under his name, said to be found in
some old wall, ceiling, or the like. All the works published under his
name were printed together at Strasburg in the year 1603, in three volumes
folio, and again in 1616. J. Oporinus, that excellent professor and printer,
before named, who constantly attended Paracelsus for three years as his
menial servant, in hopes of learning some of his secrets, who published
the works of Vesalius, and is supposed to have put them in that elegant
language wherein they now appear: this Oporinus, in an epistle to Monavius,
concerning the life of Paracelsus , professes himself surprized to find
so many works of his master; for, that in all the time he was with him
never wrote a word himself, nor ever took pen in hand, but forced Oporinus
to write what he dictated; and Oporinus wondered much how such coherent
words and discourse which might even become the wisest persons, should
come from the mouth of a drunken man. His work
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called Archidoxa Medicinæ, as containing the principles
and maxims of the art, nine books of which were published at first; and
the author in the prolegomena to them, speaks thus:--"I intended to have
published my ten books of Archidoxa ; but finding mankind unworthy of such
a treasure as the tenth, I keep it close, and have firmly resolved never
to bring it thence, till you have all abjured ARISTOTLE, AVICEN, and GALEN,
and have sworn allegiance to PARACELSUS alone."
However, the book did at length get abroad, though by
what means is not known; it is undoubtedly an excellent piece, and may
be ranked among the principal productions in the way, of chymistry, that
have ever appeared; whether or no it be Paracelsus's we cannot affirm,
but there is one thing speaks in its behalf, viz. it contains a great many
things which have since been trumped up for great nostrums; and Van Helmont's
Lithonthriptic and Alcahest are apparently taken from hence; among the
genuine writings of Paracelsus are likewise reckoned, that De Ortu Rerum
Naturalium, De Transformatione Rerum Naturalium, and De Vita Rerunt Naturalium.
The rest are spurious or very doubtful, particularly his theological works.
The great fame and success of this man, which many attribute
to his possessing an universal medicine may be accounted for from other
principles. It is certain he was well acquainted with the use and virtue
of opium, which the Galenists of those times all rejected as cold in the
fourth degree. Oporinus relates that he made up certain little pills of
the colour, figure, and size of mouse-turds, which were nothing but opium.
These he called by a barbarous sort of name, his laudanum; q. d. laudable
medicine; he always carried them with him, and prescribed them in dyssenteries,
and all cases attended with intense pains, anxieties, deliriums, and obstinate
wakings; but to be alone possessed of the use of so extraordinary and noble
a medicament as opium, was sufficient to make him famous.
Another grand remedy with Paracelsus was turbith mineral;
this is first mentioned in his Clein Spital Boeck, or Chirurgia Minor,
where he gives the preparation. In respect of the philosopher's stone.--Oporinus
says, he often wondered to see him one day without a farthing in his pocket,
and the next
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day, full of money; that he took nothing with him when
he went abroad. He adds, that he would often borrow money of his companions,
the carmen and porters, and pay it again in twenty-four hours with extravagant
interest, and yet from what fund nobody but himself knew. In the Theatrum
Alchemiæ he mentions a treasure, hid under a certain tree; and from
such like grounds they supposed him to possess the art of making gold;
but it was hard if such noble nostrums as he possessed would not subsist
him without the lapis philosophorum.
Footnotes
190:1
We feel ourselves happy in being able to say, that the taste for learning
and arts (notwithstanding the follies of the age) was never more prevalent
than in the present time; the year 1801 commences an age of flourishing
science, in which even our females seem to wish to bear a part-instance,
a lady of quality, who went in her carriage the other day to Foster-lane,
Cheapside, and bought a portable blacksmith's forge for her private amusement;
her person was strong and athletic, and very fit for the manual practice
of handling iron, and working other metallic experiments. 
...
