Alchimie

135p. 8vo. Original faded full purple cloth binding. Endpapers foxed. Gundelfinger's (Gundolf was a pseudonum) biography of Paracelsus, written for the general reader. Gundelfinger (1880-1931) was a disciple of Stefan George. He also wrote celebrated biographies of Kleist, Caesar, and Goethe. Appointed to a chair at Heidelberg in 1920, he held almost pontifical authority at that university. His Sh akespeare und der deutsche Geist (1911) is recognized as a great contribution to Shakespeare studies. Philippus Aureolus Paracelsus (Ca. 14931541), Swiss physician and alchemist, whose original name was Theophrastus Bombastus von Hohenheim. He traveled widely, acquiring knowledge of alchemy, chemistry, and metallurgy, and although his egotism and his contempt for traditional theories earned him the enmity of his learned contemporaries, he gained wide popularity among the people (he lectured and wrote in German rather than Latin) and had great influence in his own and succeeding centuries. In Salzburg, where he died, a statue was erected to him in 1752. His thought was colored by the fantastic philosophies of his time, but he firmly opposed the humoral theory of disease championed by Galen; advocated the use of specific remedies for specific diseases, introducing many chemicals (e.g., laudanum, mercury, sulfur, iron, and arsenic) into use as medicines; and noted relationships such as the hereditary pattern in syphilis and the association of cretinism with endemic goiter and of paralysis with head injuries. He wrote numerous medical and occult works containing a curious mixture of sound observation and mystical jargon. His work On Diseases of Miners was the first study devoted to an occupational disease. OCC 11