Paracelsus and Hermetic Medicine: Microcosm-Macrocosm Theory
These same elements in turn give rise to the constitutive elements of man, thus creating a specular and harmonic image between microcosm and macrocosm: man is therefore an image in a mirror, a reflection of the four elements and the disappearance of the four elements entails the disappearance of man.
This creates a network of sympathetic correspondences that unite planets, metals and human organs in a table of sympathetic correspondences:
| Planet | Metal | Organ |
|---|---|---|
| Sun | Gold | Heart |
| Moon | Silver | Brain |
| Mercury | Mercury | Lungs |
| Venus | Copper | Kidneys |
| Mars | Iron | Gallbladder |
| Jupiter | Tin | Liver |
| Saturn | Lead | Spleen |
When he had to express himself on this matter, Paracelsus always tried to distance himself from the idea of a causative astrology in favor of an astrology that signifies events. However, even when he considered the essence of the influence existing between microcosm and macrocosm, he always took care to specify that this influence is mutual and not unilateral.
"The conjunction between man and the heavens occurs in this way... There is a double firmament, one in the sky and one in every body, and these are connected to each other by mutual concordance and not by a unilateral dependence of the body on the firmament. If, for example, a discord occurs between the celestial disposition on one side and the human economy on the other, it will be the latter that breaks."
The microcosm, that is Man, and the macrocosm, that is the Universe, are therefore tuned in a perfect anthropo-cosmic resonance that results in a mutual dependence, saving free will, whereby the stars influence man and man influences the stars, according to the saying he himself would remember: "The Wise dominates the stars."
The Foundations of Hermetic Medicine
Starting from his alchemical cosmology inextricably linked to an anthropo-cosmic resonance that connected planets, metals and organs, Paracelsus had as a logical consequence the idea of being able to proceed in the treatment of diseases by means of a kind of medicinal alchemy: iatrochemistry.
For the first time, Paracelsus proposed an unprecedented theory for the time: that of being able to heal a living being like man through something devoid of life like a metal or mineral. This conceptual revolution, based essentially on his sympathetic conception of nature, led him to formulate one of the fundamental ideas underlying modern medicine: that of being able to heal through the use of a chemical principle.
From the development of this idea, Paracelsus decided to refound medicine based on four fundamental pillars:
- Philosophy: as knowledge of the invisible nature of things
- Astrology: or determination of the stars' influence on the body
- Alchemy (Chemistry): which prepares medicines capable of restoring the balance disturbed by disease
- Ethics: or virtue of the physician
"Now I will explain what I place at the foundation of medicine, faithfully maintaining this opinion: the foundations of medicine are philosophy, astronomy, alchemy and virtue. The first column consists in the integral philosophy of earth and water, the second consists in astronomy and astrology, that is, in the complete knowledge of the elements of air and fire; the third column is alchemy, complete with all its operations and nature, skilled in mastering the four known elements; the fourth column is virtue, which must assist the physician until death, to complete and preserve the other three columns."
In Paracelsus's view, therefore, medicine rests on knowledge of Hermetic doctrines, philosophy, and their celestial or superior applications, astrology, and terrestrial or inferior ones, alchemy. In this perspective, alchemy and astrology are only two sides of the same coin: the anatomy of heaven as opposed to the anatomy of earth.
Astrology will therefore serve the physician to understand when the times are propitious for the preparation and administration of a drug or remedy, since the anatomy of heaven or macrocosm is the mirror indicator of the processes that occur within human anatomy or microcosm:
"A physician should know the physiology and anatomy of heaven as well as that of man to understand the causes and cures of astral diseases, because in vain will he administer his remedy while the patient is under the influence of a malefic star, but after the malefic star ceases its influence, then the disease will cease to act."
Relationship with Physicians
Unfortunately, at the time, Paracelsus's ideas did not immediately enjoy great success, also due to the less than optimal relationship between him and his colleagues. The relationship between Paracelsus and his colleagues was perhaps necessarily mediated by the irascible character of the latter, who defines his contemporaries as: "incompetent," "cabbage heads," "manipulators of filthy drugs and horse medicines."
In particular, Paracelsus was furious with pharmacists who had the habit of changing in his prescriptions a medicine they didn't possess with another they possessed—"giving dung for musk," as Paracelsus himself would say—with physicians who declared incurable diseases they didn't know how to treat, but above all with physicians who aimed only to take the patient's money without curing any disease:
"Suppose someone is ill with fevers and these have a term of twelve weeks, after which improvement and healing occur. If the patient requires a medicine that cuts short this fever before its natural term, then he has two physicians before him, one false and one true. The false one will behave thus: he will begin the treatment calmly and slowly, will make time pass with syrups, laxatives, with purgings and barley or oat porridges, with gourds, melons, juleps and other filth of the kind, slowly procrastinating, prescribing frequent enemas and I don't know what else, adding gentle words and aiming to reach the natural term of the disease which he will however attribute to his art. Instead, you recognize the true physician from this: he divides this term into 12 parts and takes one and a half for his work."
The low esteem for the physicians of the time and his...