Paracelsus was perhaps one of the most singular enthusiasts that ever swayed the schools of medicine, or assumed a despotic stand in science. To superstition, credulity, and disreputable living, he certainly did add a certain degree of genius, but more particularly a tact which established such a reputation, that, without much presumption, he might have claimed the title which he assumed, of “Prince of Medicine,” to which he added the pompous appellation of Aureolus, Philippus, Paracelsus Theophrastus Bombastus ab Hoppenheim.
This strange personage was born in 1493, at Einsidlen, a village near Zurich; he studied under Fugger Schwartz, a celebrated professor of what was then called the Spagyristic school, or Hermetic Medicine, founded on a visionary doctrine that I shall shortly notice. He subsequently travelled over the greater part of Europe, chiefly courting a motley society of physicians, philosophers, old women, and barbers, culling all that he could from pretended science or unblushing ignorance. After having visited the German mines, where he became tainted with the superstition of the credulous workmen, he repaired to Russia, when he was made prisoner by a party of Tartars, who conducted him to their Cham. Taken into favour by their chief, he accompanied his son to Constantinople, where he pretended to have discovered the philosopher’s stone. On his return to his native country, the magistrates of Bale appointed him to the chair of medicine; and in 1527 we find him delivering a course of lectures in the German tongue, being but an indifferent scholar. This sedentary life did not suit his roving habits; and being, moreover, likely to bring his ignorance into its proper light, he set out for Alsace with another enthusiast of the name of Oporinus, with whom however he shortly quarrelled. He continued to wander from town to town, scarcely ever sleeping, or changing his linen, clad in the most slovenly manner, and generally in a state of intoxication, until at Saltzburg in 1541 he was taken ill at a miserable inn and died in the 48th year of his busy life.
He no doubt had obtained during his adventurous career much experience, having for a long time followed armies and attended at sieges, and during epidemic maladies; but he sought to disguise his want of a proper education by the assumption of a supernatural influence. One of his wildest flights of fancy was, perhaps, his receipt to make a man without conjunction.
His doctrines were founded upon Judicial Astrology, Alchymy, Cabal, and Chemistry. Grossly ignorant in the last science, he pretended that all our diseases depended upon its combinations,—the combustion of sulphur, the effervescence of saline particles, and the coagulation and stagnation of mercury in our humours: all under the influence of the Ens Astrorum, the Ens Deale, the Ens Spirituale, the Ens Veneni, and the Ens Naturale. Mercury was evacuated through the pores of the skin; sulphur emanated from the nostrils; deliquescent sulphur was discharged by the intestines; a watery solution of sulphur arose from the eyes, while arsenic oozed out of the ears. When these evacuations did not take place, the humour became putrid, and putrescency was Localiter or Emunctor labiter—as the humours were either retained or excreted.
This humoral doctrine of Paracelsus, strange to say, obtained for upwards of a century, and many were the learned men who distracted their brains and that of their disciples to multiply his errors, since we find Sanctorius calculates 90,000 morbid alterations in these peccant humours.
In another part of this work, I have related the absurdities of Van Helmont, another visionary of the seventeenth century. Endless would be the task of recording the many systems and doctrines that have in turn ruled the schools of medicine, and been supported both by professors and disciples with a degree of virulent hostility as implacable as religious controversies; and still, while we read with contempt the absurd doctrines of our forefathers, and smile at the folly of their visions, we ourselves are advocating systems which, after a lapse of some few years, will appear just as ridiculous and preposterous to our successors in the doubtful career.
One question naturally arises from all this controversial discrepance—has society benefited by the successive revolutions which have overthrown schools and doctrines, chairs and professors? have the advocates of Sangradian phlebotomy, and those who considered that the lancet has committed greater havoc than the sword—have the employers of antimony, and those who would have sent to the scaffold opponents who gave an antimonial preparation—have either of these enthusiasts diminished, in any sensible manner, the scale of mortality, or have they influenced the prevalence of disease? This is a most important question, and, however ungracious may be the task, I shall endeavour to consider it.
It is but too true, that, with the exception of the introduction of inoculation and the cowpox, the bills of mortality do not appear, at any period, to have been influenced by the prevalence of any one medical system. This circumstance, however, cannot be admitted as invalidating the claims of medical men to a due consideration of their respective merits. I have endeavoured to show, in a preceding article, that the laws of nature appear to have regulated the equilibrium of life and death and the progress of disease with such harmony, indeed, that we might say that our existence was regulated with arithmetical accuracy. If this is admitted, it might be alleged, that if such be our fated tenure of life, recourse to medical aid becomes useless, and the efforts of physicians must prove effete. Such a deduction would be fatalism in its most absurd form; for, admitting that our days are thus numbered, the human frame may be assailed by many ailments, that may not prove fatal, but admit of relief, if they cannot be cured. It is, therefore, obvious, that the services of a physician are of great value, if he merely can alleviate our sufferings, and render a painful existence tolerable. Daily facts corroborate this assertion, and the most cruel pangs are constantly relieved by professional aid, although it is not equally evident that the same skill can prolong the patient’s life, if “his hour is come;” but, as we know not when that fatal moment may strike, we must clearly seek to wind up the marvellous machinery, and keep it “going” as long as we can. We constantly behold individuals whose existence is most precarious, and yet who linger on for years, frequently to the disappointment of expectant heirs; for there is much truth in the old saying concerning those invalids who are considered to “have one foot in the grave,” they find that foot so very uncomfortable, that they hesitate for a long time ere they thrust in its fellow.
There is little doubt but that much mischief has been done by ignorant men, yet, perhaps, if the truth were known, more vital injury has been inflicted on mankind by enthusiastic science—ignorance gropes its way, so long, at least, as modesty allows to doubt; but, so soon as presumption leads the way, then ignorance assumes dogmatic assurance, and places the hardy practitioner on the same line as presumptive science—or, at least, what is considered such. It is then that enthusiasm, combined with interested motives, seeks to maintain an acquired influence by experimental proofs of supremacy; and, as it has been truly said, “There is no writ of error in the grave,” mother earth shrouds the fallacies, and every disease that the eminent practitioner cannot cure is deemed incurable.
On the other hand, the Creator has gifted mankind with an innate and latent power of resisting noxious influence—a power called by the schools the vis medicatrix naturæ, and which is generally sufficient to throw off morbid attacks, when this principle is not exhausted, and the functions not impeded by organic derangement which involves the healthy equilibrium of life; then it is, that the prudent and experienced physician will carefully watch this precious faculty, and instead of counteracting the efforts of nature, assist her bounteous labours. This watchful practice, which may, however, be sometimes too inert, has been called expectant medicine—a slow and tardy process for the energetic practitioner, who, assuming the reins of life in his bold hands endeavours to goad and drive on nature in spite of herself; this practice has obtained the name of active medicine, of which our British practitioners are accused, by the expectant continental physicians, who, to use a French expression, “voient venir,” and the French themselves are so well aware of the imprudence of this hesitation in assisting nature, that they say “Your physicians kill their patients, whereas ours let them die.” There is more truth in this remark than we perhaps are willing to believe.