Scientist of the Day - Paracelsus
Portrait of Theophrastus von Hohenheim (Paracelsus), woodcut frontispiece, De natvra rervm, by Phillip Theophrastus von Hohenheim, called Paracelsus, 1584 (Linda Hall Library)
Theophrastus Philippus Aureolus Bombastus von Hohenheim, a German alchemist and physician better known as Paracelsus, died Sep. 24, 1541, in Salzburg. Paracelsus was a medical upstart, arguing that many diseases, such as kidney stones, were chemical in nature , and required chemical remedies. He found few followers in his own time, but his writings and teachings were widely circulated after his death, and by the 17th century, chemical medicine was rivaling Galenic herbal medicine in popularity, and pharmacopoeias were expanding rapidly to include chemical preparations. We told this story in an earlier post on Paracelsus, and included a splendid oil portrait by Quentin Matsys.
Title page, De natvra rervm, by Phillip Theophrastus von Hohenheim, called Paracelsus, 1584 (Linda Hall Library)
But there was more to Paracelsian medicine. Paracelsus was a participant in the rise of natural magic, following the teachings of the mythical (we now know) Hermes Trismegistus, whose writings (which were real enough) taught that the Macrocosm – the greater world of planets, stars, and angelic hosts – was intimately connected to the Microcosm, which might be the Earth, or the human body. Thus there were seven planets in the Macrocosm, and 7 metals in the Microcosm, and there was an intimate correspondance between the two sets. If you want to prepare metallic mercury in your lab, you better make sure planet Mercury is doing propitious things in the heavens. And you had better ensure that you, the alchemical physician, are properly aligned with your stars as well. So said Paracelsus.
First page of book 9, “De signatura rerum naturalium,” De natvra rervm, by Phillip Theophrastus von Hohenheim, called Paracelsus, p. 71, 1584 (Linda Hall Library)
The problem for any natural magician was figuring out the correspondences – just what is connected with what. The planets-metals correspondence was easy and obvious, but suppose you want to know what ailment a plant, or a mineral, might treat. Paracelsus suggested that we look for signatures – signs in nature that reveal sympathies or correspondences. If a plant has leaves with lobes that look like a liver, then that is a sign that it can be used to treat diseases of the liver, and the signature can also be the basis for its name – liverwort. Similarly, hounds-tongue, cockscomb, bloodwort, and beebalm have names based on their signatures.
Separate title page, On the Nature of Things, by Phillip Theophasus of Hohenheim, called Paracelsus, 1650 (Linda Hall Library)
The doctrine of signatures actually goes back to ancient times and the medical botany of Dioscorides, but Paracelsus was the one who incorporated it into the magical world of the Renaissance and into alchemy. He even wrote a short treatise called De natura rerum, “On the Nature of Things” (which, in spite of its title, is written and printed in German), and the ninth and final chapter is called “De signa rerum naturalium,” “On the signs of natural things.” We show the title page and the heading of chapter 9 here (second and third images). We also have an English translation of the work, and we include here the title page, and a page from chapter nine that discusses plant signatures, in English (fourth and fifth images).
Detail of page listing plants named after their signatures, On the Nature of Things, by Phillip Theophasus of Hohenheim, called Paracelsus, 1650 (Linda Hall Library)
The doctrine of signatures became an important part of Renaissance natural magic, and hence natural philosophy. Giovanni Battista della Porta, whose book Magiae naturalis (1589) was the guidebook to late Renaissance natural magic, wrote two entire treatises on signatures, one called Phytognomonica (1588), on plant signatures, with many woodcuts, and another called De humana physiognomonia (1586), illustrating a variety of human faces that resemble animals, and what that tells us about their characters and personalities. We wrote a post once about the latter; we will have to look at Porta's book on plant signatures some time, in the light of today's essay.
In our first post on Paracelsus, we showed a second portrait, a woodcut taken from a Renaissance portrait book we own. We show the same portrait here, but from a different source; it is the frontispiece to our little book, De natura rerum (1584), the source for our second and third images, and appeared here first, before it was appropriated for the portrait book.
Title page, A New Light of Alchymie, by Michael Sendivogius, 1650, which contains as its second treatise, On the Nature of Things, by Paracelsus, 1650 (Linda Hall Library)
Finally, the English translation of Paracelsus's book, On the Nature of Things, can be hard to find in library catalogs, for even though it has its own title page (fourth image), it was issued and bound with a different book, A New Light of Alchemie, by a different author, Michael Sendivogius, and it is often listed only under Sendivogius. To help you find it, I show the title page of the Sendivogius work as well (sixth image). You will see that it does mention the Paracelsus book that follows.
William B. Ashworth, Jr., Consultant for the History of Science, Linda Hall Library and Associate Professor emeritus, Department of History, University of Missouri-Kansas City. Comments or corrections are welcome; please direct to ashworthw@umkc.edu.
