Paracelsus's Alchemical Cosmogony and Hermetic Medicine
From Johannes Trithemius of Sponheim's commentary on Hermes Trismegistus's Emerald Tablet, Paracelsus derived one of the pillars of his thought: the analogical correspondence between microcosm and macrocosm, and between superior astronomy (Astrology) and inferior astronomy (Alchemy).
Paracelsus's Alchemical Cosmogony
In Paracelsian Cosmogony, everything that exists derives from the polarization of a single primitive matter, called Yliaster from the syncretism of the words hylé (matter) and astrum (star). In this matter lived mixed the three fundamental principles or substances that Paracelsus identifies with the terms Sulfur, Mercury and Salt. The first, sulfur, identifies everything that is flammable; the second, mercury, what is volatile; and the third, salt, what is fixed.
From this shapeless and chaotic matter the four elements are separated, also expressions of cosmic forces and not indicators of simple material elements:
"First the iliastro was divided, which disappeared, giving and making and coordinating the four elements, seed from which grows the trunk of the tree. The element must be framed according to its tendency and not according to its body or substance because what is visible is only the framework, and the element is a spirit that lives in things like the soul in the body."
From the fire element or spirit, derive then the qualities of the stars that originate from the multiplicity of this unique spirit or fire. This reverberating in the stars, first collectors of this spirit, gives rise to metals:
"Having spoken of the simple fire that lives and subsists by itself, it remains now to speak of a multiple spirit or fire that is the cause of the variety or diversity of creatures, such that none can be found exactly equal to another in every part. This can be seen in metals where none has another exactly equal to itself. The Sun produces Gold, the Moon another and largely different metal called silver; Mars another called iron; Jupiter tin; Venus copper and Saturn another called lead, so that all these are different from each other."
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.
Thus is created 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 |
The Foundations of Hermetic Medicine
The relationship between Paracelsus and his colleagues was perhaps necessarily mediated by the irascible character of the latter, who defines his contemporaries as: "incapable," "cabbage heads," "manipulators of filthy drugs and horse medicines." In particular, Paracelsus is furious with pharmacists who have the habit of changing in his prescriptions a medicine they don't possess with another they do possess - "giving him dung for musk," as Paracelsus himself will say - with doctors who declare incurable the diseases they don't know how to cure, but especially with doctors who only aim to take the sick person'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 come. If the sick person requires a medicine that breaks this fever before its natural term, then he has two doctors in front of him, one false and one true. The false one will behave thus: he will begin the cure quite calmly and slowly, will let time pass with syrups, laxatives, with purges and barley or oat porridges, with gourds, watermelons, juleps and other filth of the kind, slowly dawdling, 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 doctor from this: this term he divides into 12 parts and takes one and a half for his work."
The New Medicine
Starting from his alchemical cosmology indissolubly connected to an anthropo-cosmic resonance that linked planets, metals and organs, Paracelsus had as a logical consequence the idea of being able to proceed in the cure of diseases by means of a kind of medicinal alchemy: iatrochemistry. For the first time Paracelsus proposed an unheard-of theory for the time: that of being able to heal a being endowed with life like man through something devoid of life like a metal or mineral. This conceptual revolution, based essentially on his sympathetic conception of nature, thus led him to formulate one of the fundamental ideas at the base of modern medicine, that of being able to heal thanks to 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 doctor
"Now I will explain to you what I place at the base of medicine, faithfully maintaining this opinion: the bases 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..."