PARACELSUS: ESSENTIAL READINGS
Selected and translated by
NICHOLAS GOODRICK-CLARKE
DAS BUCH PARAGRANUM (1529-30)
They
reproach me that my writings are not like theirs; that is the fault of their understanding,
not my fault, for my writings are well rooted in experiment and evidence and
will send forth their young shoots when the right May-time comes. They
have good cause to complain of my writings, for no one cries out unless he is
hurt; no one is hurt unless he is sensitive, unless he is transient and
impermanent. They cry out because their art is fragile and mortal; what
is not mortal does not cry out, thus they are mortal and they cry out against
me. The art of medicine does not cry out against me, for it is immortal
and set upon such an eternal foundation that heaven and earth shall be
shattered before medicine perishes. So long as I am at peace with
medicine, why should the outcry of a mortal physician upset me. They cry
out because I wound them; it is a sign
they themselves are sick in their medicine; this disease is their struggle
against me, because they are not pleased to be discovered and exposed.
Their worst contention against me is that I do not come out of their schools,
nor write out of their learning. If I wrote in such a way, how should I
escape punishment for lying, for the old writings are manifestly
false. What, then, can come out of them but falsehood? If I want to
write the truth about their medicine, about their students, masters, and
preceptors, there would have to some common ground uniting them, for they are
all shouting out what medicine is, and their outcry needs to be exposed just as
much as their art. So, if I attempt to write the truth about them, I must
point out those bases upon which true medicine stands, in order that people may
judge whether I have authority to write or not.
And because I write from the true source of medicine, I must be rejected, and
you who are born neither of the true origin nor of the true heredity must
adhere to the spurious art which raises itself beside the true. Who is
there amongst the instructed who would not prefer what is grounded on a rock to
what is grounded on sand? Only the abandoned academic drunkards who bear
the name of doctor must suffer no deposition! They abide, painted
doctors, and if they were not painted with this title, who would recognize
them? Their works would certainly not reveal them. Outwardly they
are beautiful, inwardly they are squalid dunces. What instructed and
experienced man desires a doctor who is only an outward show? None.
Only the simpletons desire him. What, then, is the origin of that
medicine which no instructed man desires, from which no Philosophy issues, in
which no Astronomy can be noted, in which no Alchemy is practised, and in which
there is no vestige of Virtue? And because I point out these things
essential in a physician, I must needs have my name changed by them to
Cacophrastus, when I am really called Theophrastus, both for my art's sake and
by my christening.
Understand then thoroughly
that I am expounding the basics of medicine upon which I stand and will stand:
namely, Philosophy, Astronomy, Alchemy, and Virtue. The first pillar,
Philosophy, is the knowledge of earth and water; the second pillar, Astronomy
together with Astrology, has a complete knowledge of the two elements, air and
fire; the third pillar, Alchemy, is knowledge of the experiment and preparation
of the four elements mentioned; and the fourth pillar, Virtue, should remain
with the physician until death, for this completes and preserves the other
three pillars. And note well, for you too must enter here and come to
understand the three pillars, otherwise it will be known by the very peasants
in the villages that your trade is to treat princes and lords, towns and
countries through lies and deception only and that you know neither your trade
nor the truth, for the education which prepares you fits you for fools and
hypocrites, all you supposed physicians. And as I take the four pillars,
so must you take them too and follow after me, not I after you.
Follow after me, Avicenna,
Galen, Rhasis, Montagnana, Mesue, etc. Follow after me, and not I after
you, you from Paris, you from Montpellier, you from Swabia, you from Meissen,
you from Cologne, you from Vienna and from the Danube, the Rhine, and the
islands in the sea. Italy, Dalmatia, Sarmatia, Athens, Greek, Arab, Israelite,
follow me and not I you. Not one of you will survive, even in the most
distant corner, where even the dogs will not piss. I shall be monarch and mine
will be the monarchy.
There are three substances
which give every single thing its body. The names of these three things
are Sulphur, Mercury, and Salt. These three are combined to make a body and
nothing else is added save life and that which pertains to it. If you
take an object in your hand, you have these three substances concealed within
one body. A peasant can tell you that you are holding a piece of wood,
but you also know that you have a compound of Sulphur, Mercury, and Salt.
If you have a bone and can say whether it is mostly Sulphur, Mercury, or Salt,,
you know why it is diseased or what is the matter with it. The peasant
can see the externals, but the physicians task is to see the inner and secret
matter. In order to make these things visible, Nature must be compelled
to show itself.... Take a piece of wood. It is a body. Now
burn it. The flammable part is the Sulphur, the smoke is the Mercury, and
the ash is the Salt. The peasant cannot understand the process of
combustion, but the physician can with the eyes of medicine.
What is the taste other than
a need in the anatomy in which nothing is important except to reach its own
like? It follows that as this gustus [taste] is distributed to
every member in the body, each desires its own like, the sweet desires the
sweet, the bitter desires the bitter, each in its degree and measure, as those
held by the plants sweet, sour, and bitter. Shall the liver seek medicine
in gentian, agaric, or colocynth? No. Shall the gallbladder seek
medicine in manna, honey, sugar, or the polypody fern? No, for like seeks
its like. Nor in the order of anatomy shall cold be a cure for heat, nor
heat for cold. It would be a wild disorder if we were to seek our cure in
contraries. A child asks his father for bread and he does not give him a
snake. God has created us and he gives us what we ask, not snakes.
So it would be bad medicine to give bitters where sugar is required. The
gall -bladder must have what it asks, and the heart too, and the liver.
It is a fundamental pillar upon which the physician should rest to give to each
part of the anatomy the special thing that accords with it. For the bread
which the child eats has an anatomy similar to his own, and the child eats as
it were his own body. Therefore each sickness in the anatomy must have
its own corresponding medicine. He who does not understand the anatomy
finds it difficult to act if he be honest and simple; but it is worse with those
whose honour is small and whom shame and crime do not trouble. They are
the enemies of the light of Nature.... What blind man asks for bread from
God and receives poison? If you are experienced and grounded in anatomy
you will not give stones instead of bread. For know that you are the
father rather than the physician of your patients: therefore feed them as a
father does his child. As a father must support his child according to
his need and must give him the food which becomes himself, so must the
physician care for his patients.
Christ who is the Truth has
given us no false remedy but one that is compatible and arcane. For far
be it from us to say that Christ knew not the sympathy of Nature.
Therefore oil and wine must be competent,
else there is no foundation in medicine.... Let it be manifest to you
that a grain of wheat yields no fruit unless it be cast into the ground and die
there. Thus the wound is the earth, and the oil and wine the grain.
You must guess what the fruit is.
There
are three anatomies which should be maintained in man: first localis , which tells us form,
propositions, substance of a man and all that pertains to him; the second shows
the living Sulphur, the flowing Mercury, the sharp Salt in each organ; and the
third instructs us what kind of anatomy death brings, that is mortis
anatomia, and in what manner and likeness he comes. For the light of
Nature shows that death comes in as many forms as there are species from the
elements; there are as many kinds of death as there are kinds of
corruption. And just as each corruption gives birth to another, it
requires anatomy. It comes in many forms until one after another we all
die and are consumed through corruption. But beyond all these anatomies,
there is also a uniform science in the anatomy of medicine, and beyond them all
stand heaven, earth, water, and air, and the heavens and all the stars have
their part in the new anatomy. For Saturn must give his saturnum,
Mars his martem, and until these are discovered, the art of medicine has
not been found. For as the tree grows out of the seed, so must all that
seems now invisible grow into new life, for it is there, and it must come to
pass that it shall be visible. For the light of Nature is a light to make
men see and it is neither dark nor dim.
And it must come to pass that
we shall use our eyes in that light to see those things that we require to
see. They will not be otherwise than they are now; but we must be
otherwise able to see them. We must see in a different manner to the
peasant. The light of Nature must kindle our eyes.
All our nourishment becomes
ourselves; we eat ourselves into being. So also in medicine, with this
difference, that the treatment must match the disease. In health all that
is worn out is restored to each organ by and in itself. Do not be
astonished at this: a tree which stands in the field would not be a tree,
had it no nourishment. What is nourishment? It is not a mere
feeding or stuffing, but the restoration of form. What is hunger? It is a
precursor of future death in the waste of the organs. For the form is
carved by God himself in the womb. This carving abides in the form of
each type, but it wastes and dies without addition from without. He who
does not eat does not grow, he who does not eat does not last. Therefore
he who grows, grows by nourishment, and the shaper is with him to give form,
and without it he cannot exist. Whence it follows that the nourishment of
each careen type has the form within itself in which it grows and
develops. Rain has the tree in itself, and so has the earth sap.
Rain is the drink, earth sap the food, by which the tree grows. What is
it that grows? What the tree absorbs from rain and earth sap becomes wood
and bark. The shaper is in the seed, wood and bark are in the earth sap and the
rain. The craftsman in the seed can make wood out of these two
things. And it is the same with plants; the seed is nothing but a
beginning in which is the form and the craftsman, the type and property.
If it is to germinate, the rain, dew, and earth sap must develop the plant, for
in these are the stalks, leaves, flowers, and so on.
There
must therefore be an outward form in all nourishment for growth, and if we do
not receive it, we never grow but die in the neglected form. And if we
are grown up, we must preserve our form, lest it waste away. For we have
in us what resembles fire, which consumes our form. If we did not supply
and support the form of our body, it would die neglected. Therefore what
we eat becomes ourselves so that we do not die through the decay of our
form. In this way we eat our fingers, our body, blood, flesh, feet,
brain, heart, and so on. For every bite we take contains in itself all
our organs, all that is included in the whole man, all of which he is
constituted . . . When summer is at hand, the trees become hungry because they
want to put forth leaves, blossom, fruit. They have not got these within
themselves, otherwise trees that were cut down would put forth leaves as well
as those still standing. They stand in the earth whence they receive
these things into their own form, where the craftsmen shapes them according to
the kind of each; that is his contribution. Know therefore that in order to preserve their form and type from being consumed, all living things
become hungry and thirsty.
There are two men, visible
and invisible. That which is visible is twofold, namely, like the body in
this example. An image is carved out of wood, in which it could not be
originally discerned. This is the nourishment, which once in the body
goes into all its organs. It does not remain in one part, but is richly
used. For the great Artist carves it, He who makes man, and distributes
to the organs so as to make man. Now we know that we eat ourselves; every
tree and every creature that lives, and we must now learn further what follows
from this concerning medicine. We do not eat bone, blood vessels,
ligaments, and seldom brain, heart, and entrails, nor fat; therefore bone does
not make bone, nor brain brain, but every bite contains all these. Bread
is blood, but who sees it? It is fat, who sees it? For the
master-craftsman in the stomach is good. He can make iron out of
brimstone; he is there daily and shapes the man according to his form. He
can make diamonds out of salt, and gold out of mercury. He is more
concerned with man than with things, so he labours at him in all that is
necessary. Bring him the material, let him divide it and shape it as it
should be, for he knows the measure, number, weight, proportion, length and
all. Know then that every creature is twofold, one out of the seed, the
other out of nourishment.... He has death within himself, and through
nourishment he must hold it at bay.
The
body is developed from Sulphur, that is, the whole body is one Sulphur, and
that a subtle Sulphur which burns and destroys invisibly. Blood is one
Sulphur, flesh is another, the major organs another, the marrow another, and so
on; and this Sulphur is volatile. But the different bones are also
Sulphur, only their Sulphur is fixed: in scientific analysis each Sulphur can
be distinguished. Now the stiffening of the body comes from Salt: without the Salt no part of the body could be grasped. From
Salt the diamond receives its hard texture, iron its hardness, lead its soft
texture, alabaster its softness, and so on. All stiffening or coagulation
comes from Salt. There is therefore one Salt in the bones, another in the
blood, another in the flesh, another in the brain, and so on. For as many
as there are Sulphurs there are also Salts. The third substance of the
body is Mercury; which is a fluid. All parts of the body have their own fluid:
thus the blood has one, the flesh has another, the bones, the marrow, each has
its own fluid, which is Mercury. So that Mercury has as many forms as
Sulphur and Salt. But since roan must have a complete form, its various
parts must compact, stiffen, and have a fluid: the three form and unite one
body. It is one body but of three substances. Sulphur burns, it is
only a sulphur; Salt is an alkali, for it is fixed; Mercury is a vapour, for it
does not burn but evaporates. Know then that all dissolution arises from
these three.
The
three substances are in the four elements, or mothers of all things; for out of
the elements proceed all things: from earth come plants, trees, and all
their varieties; from water, metals, stones, and all minerals; from the air,
dew and manna; from fire, thunder, rays of light, snow, and rain. And
when the microcosm is broken up, part becomes earth, and so wonderful that in a
brief time it bears the fruits whose seed has been sown therein, and this the
physician should know. Out of the broken body, too, comes the second
element, water; and as water is the mother of the minerals, the alchemist can
compound rubies out of it. And the dissolution also gives the third
element, fire, from which hail can be drawn. And air too ascends from the
rising spirit, just as dew forms inside a closed glass. Many have begun to
treat of this generation of creation, but they have failed. There is
another transmutation after these, and it yields every kind of Sulphur, Salt,
and Mercury which the microcosmic world can demonstrate. This is very
important, for it concerns man's quest for health, his water of life, his
Philosopher's Stone, his arcanum, his balsam, his
golden drink, and the like. All these things are in the microcosm; just
as they are in the outer world, they are in the inner world.
Therefore man is his own
physician; for as he helps Nature she gives him what he needs, and gives him
his herbal garden according to the requirements of his anatomy. If we
consider and observe all things fundamentally we discover that in ourselves is
our physician and in our own nature are all things that we need. Take our
wounds: what is needed for the healing of wounds? Nothing except that the
flesh should grow from within outwards, not from the outside inwards.
Therefore the treatment of wounds is a defensive treatment, that no contingency
from without may hinder our nature in its working. In this way our nature
heals itself and levels and fills up itself, as surgery teaches the experienced
surgeon. For the mumia is the man himself, the mumia is the
balsam which heals the wound: mastic, gums, glaze will not give a morsel of
flesh; but they can protect the working of Nature so as to assist it.
Since
man derives from the limbus and the limbus is the whole world, it
follows that each several thing finds its like in the other. For were man
not made out of the whole in every part of the whole, he could not be the
microcosm. nor would he be capable of attracting to himself all that is the
macrocosm. But as he is made out of the whole, all that he eats out of
the Great World is part of himself for he must be maintained by that of which
he is made. For as a son is born from his father and no one helps the son
so naturally as the father, in the same way the curative members of the outer
world help the members of the inner world. For the Great World has all
the human proportions, divisions, parts, members just as man has; and man
receives these in food and medicine. These parts are separated one from
another for the sake of the whole and its form. In science their general body is the physicum corpus. So
man's body receives the body of the world, as a son his father's blood; for
these are one blood and one body, separated only by the soul, but in science
without separation. It follows then that heaven and earth, air and water
are a man in science, and man is a world with heaven and earth, air and water
in science. So the Saturn of the microcosm receives from Saturn in the
heavens, as the Jupiter of the heavens takes from the Jupiter of the
microcosm. The melissa of the earth takes from the melissa of the
microcosm . . . and they are all in union. Therefore heaven and earth,
air and water are one substance, not four, nor two, nor three, but one.
Where they are not in union, the substance has been destroyed or broken up.
We must therefore understand
that when we administer medicine, we administer the whole world: that is, all
the virtue of heaven and earth, air and water. Because if there is
sickness in the body, all the healthy organs must fight against it, not only
one, but all. For one sickness can be death to them all: note how
Nature struggles against sickness with all her power. Therefore your
medicine must contain the whole firmament of both upper and lower
spheres. Think with what energy Nature strives against death when she
takes heaven and earth with all their powers to help her. So too must the
soul. fight against the devil with all her might .... Nature has a
horror of cruel and bitter death, which our eyes cannot sec, nor our hands
clutch. But Nature sees and knows and clutches him: therefore she employs
the powers of heaven and earth against the terrible one, for terrible he is and
monstrous, hideous, and harsh. As he who made him, Christ on the Mount of
Olives, who sweated blood and prayed to his Father to take him away -- it is reasonable
that Nature should be appalled. For the better death is known, the
greater is the value of medicine, a refuge which the wise seek.