Paracelsus Burned Medical Books, 1527

Swiss physician, wandering mystic and alchemist Paracelsus pioneered the use of chemicals and minerals in medicine. Science writer Philip Ball writes: "Paracelsus lived from 1493 to 1541: a turning point in Western history, the dawn of the modern age. This was a world in which magic was real, demons lurked in every dark corner and God governed all creation. It was also a time when humanity began to crack nature’s codes and map the geography of heaven and earth."

Paracelsus is famous for opposing the ancient ideas of Hippocrates and Galen, both of whom proposed that disease resulted from an imbalance of the four humors (fluids: blood, black bile, yellow bile and phlegm). Paracelsus believed disease arose from other factors outside the body or other abnormalities that could be treated with chemicals. In 1527, he publicly burned the standard medical texts of the day, including works by Galen and Avicenna. According to author Hugh Crone, this burning in a bonfire lit by students "can rightly be seen as a turning point in medical history". Destroying the foundations of Galenic medicine forced physicians to question authority and use fresh observations and experiments as they searched for new drugs.

One of Paracelsus’s major works documented the occupational hazards of metalworking and mining. Paracelsus is also sometimes called the father of toxicology. "All things are poisonous, and nothing is without poison. Only the dose allows a thing not to be poisonous." In other words, he emphasized that toxicity depends on dose.

Paracelsus proposed the idea of "like cures like": if a poison causes a disease, the same poison, given in the right dosage and form, can be used as a treatment. In some ways, this foreshadowed the still-popular alternative medicine known as homeopathy, whose practitioners use extremely diluted preparations. However, most highly controlled studies have concluded that homeopathy is no more effective than a placebo according to their findings.

Description of the article image: Paracelsus, painted by Flemish artist Quentin Massys (1466–1530).

Historical figures mentioned in the article: Hippocrates of Cos (460 B.C.–377 B.C.), Galen of Pergamon (129– 199), Abu ‘Ali al-Husayn ibn ‘Abd-Allah Ibn Sina (Avicenna) (980–1037), Paracelsus (born Phillippus Aureolus Theophrastus Bombastus von Hohenheim; 1493–1541)

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