The Devil's Doctor: Paracelsus and the World of Renaissance Magic and SciencePhilippus Aureolus Theophrastus Bombast von Hohenheim, who called himself Paracelsus, stands at the cusp of medieval and modern times. A contemporary of Luther, an enemy of the medical establishment, a scourge of the universities, an alchemist, an army surgeon, and a radical theologian, he attracted myths even before he died. His fantastic journeys across Europe and beyond were said to be made on a magical white horse, and he was rumored to carry the elixir of life in the pommel of his great broadsword. His name was linked with Faust, who bargained with the devil. Who was the man behind these stories? Some have accused him of being a charlatan, a windbag who filled his books with wild speculations and invented words. Others claim him as the father of modern medicine. Philip Ball exposes a more complex truth in The Devil's Doctor—one that emerges only by entering into Paracelsus’s time. He explores the intellectual, political, and religious undercurrents of the sixteenth century and looks at how doctors really practiced, at how people traveled, and at how wars were fought. For Paracelsus was a product of an age of change and strife, of renaissance and reformation. And yet by uniting the diverse disciplines of medicine, biology, and alchemy, he assisted, almost in spite of himself, in the birth of science and the emergence of the age of rationalism. |
Contents
INTRODUCTION Fools Quest A Faustian Legacy | 3 |
CHAPTER ONE Black Madonna A Country Doctor | 19 |
CHAPTER TWO The Metal Makers Learning the Arts | 29 |
CHAPTER THREE The Universal Scholar A Renaissance Education | 39 |
CHAPTER FOUR The Staff and the Snake Healing in the Early Renaissance | 48 |
CHAPTER FIVE Intellectual Vagabonds Walking the Pages of the Book of Nature | 75 |
CHAPTER SIX A New Religion The Trials of Reformation | 101 |
CHAPTER SEVEN Revolution Under the Sign of the Shoe Sedition in Salzburg | 123 |
CHAPTER THIRTEEN The Alchemist Inside A Hermetic Biology | 234 |
CHAPTER FOURTEEN Beyond Wonders The Matrix of the World | 249 |
CHAPTER FIFTEEN Star and Ascendant A Science of Prophecy | 276 |
CHAPTER SIXTEEN Demons of the Mind Invisible Diseases | 296 |
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN The Little Man Animating the Earth | 321 |
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN The White Horse Death in Salzburg | 336 |
CHAPTER NINETEEN Work with Fire The Chemical Legacy of Paracelsus | 345 |
CHAPTER TWENTY Philosophers Gold The Last of the Chemical magicians | 368 |
CHAPTER EIGHT Transmutation at Ingolstadt Making Gold | 137 |
CHAPTER NINE Elixir and Quintessence A Chemical Medicine | 164 |
CHAPTER TEN Bitter Medicine Paracelsus Among the Humanists | 187 |
CHAPTER ELEVEN The Battle of Basle How Paracelsus Left Town | 204 |
CHAPTER TWELVE Against the Grain Quicksilver and Wood | 215 |
Other editions - View all
The Devil's Doctor: Paracelsus and the World of Renaissance Magic and Science Philip Ball Limited preview - 2006 |
The Devil's Doctor: Paracelsus and the World of Renaissance Magic and Science Philip Ball No preview available - 2007 |
Common terms and phrases
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