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Devil's Doctor
" Praise for The Devil's Doctor Brilliant... This prodigiously learned volume can only reinforce Ball's reputation as one of our most versatile and gripping science writers. John Carey " ( Sunday Times )"Stirring and fascinating reading... This is a remarkable piece of work, entertaining and edifying in a way in which so few biographies are. Niall Griffiths " ( Telegraph )"'This biography is a study of a culture as well as of a man, and in analysing the life and thought of Paracelsus, Ball brings to light a largely forgotten phase of human understanding. It is a considerable achievement.' Peter Ackroyd " ( The Times )"[A] wonderfully rich biography... Inspiring and important.'" ( Guardian )" Praise for Critical Mass : 'This is a wide-ranging and dazzlingly informed book. I can promise you'll be amazed.' Bill Bryson " ( Daily Express )
Hardcover
First published January 1, 2006
About the author
Philip Ball
71 books519 followersPhilip Ball (born 1962) is an English science writer. He holds a degree in chemistry from Oxford and a doctorate in physics from Bristol University. He was an editor for the journal Nature for over 10 years. He now writes a regular column in Chemistry World. Ball's most-popular book is the 2004 Critical Mass: How One Things Leads to Another, winner of the 2005 Aventis Prize for Science Books. It examines a wide range of topics including the business cycle, random walks, phase transitions, bifurcation theory, traffic flow, Zipf's law, Small world phenomenon, catastrophe theory, the Prisoner's dilemma. The overall theme is one of applying modern mathematical models to social and economic phenomena.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 45 reviews
May 20, 2014
My local hospital, in the little Swiss village where I now live, is called the Paracelsus-Spital. He must be from round here, I thought – no one would name a hospital after a mad alchemist unless there was some local connection, surely. Would you want to be treated at a place associated with someone whose preferred remedy for the plague was
…? And sure enough, ‘Paracelsus’ – Theophrastus Bombast Von Hohenheim, 1493–1541 – turns out to have been born in the next village inland from me, Einsiedeln, which is also notable for being the place where Zwingli first worked as a parish priest. The two men were contemporaries; Paracelsus stomped furiously across the whole of Reformation Europe and beyond, from Scotland to Algiers, from Moscow to Jerusalem, and seemingly everywhere in between. He was the archetypal Renaissance magus figure, always on the road, fascinated by all knowledge, seeing no distinction between chemistry and theology, by turns modern and medieval, and blending occultism with rationalism in a way that made no sense to anyone, including himself.
One of the things I like best about this book is that it does not try to present Paracelsus – as so many of his contemporaries are presented – as a forerunner of the modern scientist. A lot of energy is expended making the point that ‘magic’ and ‘science’ were not, in this period, distinguishable, and the fact that we remember some people (Newton, Copernicus) as scientists and others (Paracelsus, Agrippa) as magicians/charlatans is an anachronism that has to do with which theories have been shown, over time, to be true. Gravity really does follow an inverse square law, and the earth really does revolve around the sun; but De revolutionibus was couched in terms of astrological significance and Newton devised his theory of gravity while working on a book about the mysteries of the Cabbala. We remember the bits that are part of modern science and forget that they came from a complex early-modern mixture of feverish theories and arcane suppositions. ‘Science resulted not from efforts to get rid of [magical ideas], but from attempts to make sense of them.’
Paracelsus produced no real lasting contributions to modern scientific knowledge, but his work was not qualitatively different from those that did, and for a long time after his death it seemed as though Paracelsianism would determine the shape of modern science. What did the term mean exactly? Well, in part it meant modernity. He was the first major figure to break with the Galenic tradition in Europe, and suggest that modern medical treatments had the potential to be much better than the received wisdom and humoral theory of the Greeks and Romans. He set more store by experimentation and practice than by books, and made a point of consulting just as much with local wise women and folk healers as with learned doctors – indeed probably rather more of the former than of the latter. He was inconsistent, fell out with everyone he met, bore long grudges, and was fiercely independent – as suggested by his family motto:
When you read statements like, ‘practice should not be based on speculative theory; theory should be derived from practice’, it is easy to believe that you are dealing with a proto-modern rationalist. But Paracelsus rarely followed his own advice, and many of his own theories were not just misguided but, frankly, batshit insane.
He maintained a fierce belief in alchemy at a time when it looked like the discipline might be going out of fashion. For Paracelsus, alchemy was less about transmuting base metal into gold (though popular stories about his chrysopoeian abilities abounded) and more about the principle of refining every substance into its purest, most elemental components. He discovered, for instance, that repeated distillation and separation of wine would produce a colourless, fiery ‘quintessence’ – now known as alcohol.
What was done by the alchemist in his laboratory was no more than what was done by nature all the time – not least within the human body. Paracelsus has been called the first biochemist for his insightful realization that some kind of transmutation must be taking place within our own bodies every time we eat. He attributed this to a sort of internal alchemist called the archeus, but it is not such a very long way from passages like the following to the discovery of enzymes:
Spare a thought for the fact that the transformation of bread into flesh in sixteenth-century Europe was, to put it mildly, a live issue. Paracelsus tried not to take sides in religious debates – he memorably described Luther and the Pope as ‘two whores debating chastity’ – but none of this was merely an intellectual exercise for him. It was all about the meaning of life. His theories are ‘best described not as proto-science but as chemical theology’. Chemistry and medicine were ways of understanding the hand of god, of deciphering the secrets that underpinned the universe.
And once you knew these secrets, astonishing mysteries became available to you. Paracelsus believed that he could create life in his laboratory, in the form of a homunculus, a little humanoid grown from natural alchemy. If you want to try it at home, here's the recipe:
Heady stuff. No surprise that Paracelsus was a major source for the Faust legend, and indeed was a contemporary of the likely original Doctor Faust, with whose biography his own was often conflated.
Philip Ball tells the story well, drawing links to modern scientific ideas where necessary, but never letting you forget the profound mysticism of the time. The outstanding introductory chapter, which sets the scene of Renaissance science brilliantly, is worth the cover price alone.
Ball is a science writer, not a biographer, and there are parts of the book where the narrative drive seems to flag a little; the absence of biographical detail about Paracelsus's life also means he has to pad the book out with long diversions on contemporary mining, banking, venereal disease etc., which different readers may find fascinating or distracting. Paracelsus is worth sticking around for, a good reminder of the potential futures that were contained in the early-modern present. Ball's assessment of one of Paracelsus's theories will stand for a good summary of the man's work, and indeed of the whole fascinating period:
(May 2014)
In Meinrad Lienert's Sagen und Legenden der Schweiz, I read that local legend accounts for the loss of Paracelsus's alchemical secrets: his powers were apparently concentrated in the pommel of his smallsword, which was lost when he died. My very free and selective translation of the deathbed scene:
(Dec 2015)
pills of rolled bread tainted with infected faeces
…? And sure enough, ‘Paracelsus’ – Theophrastus Bombast Von Hohenheim, 1493–1541 – turns out to have been born in the next village inland from me, Einsiedeln, which is also notable for being the place where Zwingli first worked as a parish priest. The two men were contemporaries; Paracelsus stomped furiously across the whole of Reformation Europe and beyond, from Scotland to Algiers, from Moscow to Jerusalem, and seemingly everywhere in between. He was the archetypal Renaissance magus figure, always on the road, fascinated by all knowledge, seeing no distinction between chemistry and theology, by turns modern and medieval, and blending occultism with rationalism in a way that made no sense to anyone, including himself.
One of the things I like best about this book is that it does not try to present Paracelsus – as so many of his contemporaries are presented – as a forerunner of the modern scientist. A lot of energy is expended making the point that ‘magic’ and ‘science’ were not, in this period, distinguishable, and the fact that we remember some people (Newton, Copernicus) as scientists and others (Paracelsus, Agrippa) as magicians/charlatans is an anachronism that has to do with which theories have been shown, over time, to be true. Gravity really does follow an inverse square law, and the earth really does revolve around the sun; but De revolutionibus was couched in terms of astrological significance and Newton devised his theory of gravity while working on a book about the mysteries of the Cabbala. We remember the bits that are part of modern science and forget that they came from a complex early-modern mixture of feverish theories and arcane suppositions. ‘Science resulted not from efforts to get rid of [magical ideas], but from attempts to make sense of them.’
Paracelsus produced no real lasting contributions to modern scientific knowledge, but his work was not qualitatively different from those that did, and for a long time after his death it seemed as though Paracelsianism would determine the shape of modern science. What did the term mean exactly? Well, in part it meant modernity. He was the first major figure to break with the Galenic tradition in Europe, and suggest that modern medical treatments had the potential to be much better than the received wisdom and humoral theory of the Greeks and Romans. He set more store by experimentation and practice than by books, and made a point of consulting just as much with local wise women and folk healers as with learned doctors – indeed probably rather more of the former than of the latter. He was inconsistent, fell out with everyone he met, bore long grudges, and was fiercely independent – as suggested by his family motto:
Eins andern knecht soll niemand seyn, der für sich bleyben kann alleyn.
‘Let no man belong to another, who can belong to himself.’
When you read statements like, ‘practice should not be based on speculative theory; theory should be derived from practice’, it is easy to believe that you are dealing with a proto-modern rationalist. But Paracelsus rarely followed his own advice, and many of his own theories were not just misguided but, frankly, batshit insane.
He maintained a fierce belief in alchemy at a time when it looked like the discipline might be going out of fashion. For Paracelsus, alchemy was less about transmuting base metal into gold (though popular stories about his chrysopoeian abilities abounded) and more about the principle of refining every substance into its purest, most elemental components. He discovered, for instance, that repeated distillation and separation of wine would produce a colourless, fiery ‘quintessence’ – now known as alcohol.
What was done by the alchemist in his laboratory was no more than what was done by nature all the time – not least within the human body. Paracelsus has been called the first biochemist for his insightful realization that some kind of transmutation must be taking place within our own bodies every time we eat. He attributed this to a sort of internal alchemist called the archeus, but it is not such a very long way from passages like the following to the discovery of enzymes:
all our nourishment becomes ourselves; we eat ourselves into being…. For every bite we take contains in itself all our organs, all that is included in the whole man, all of which he is constituted…. We do not eat bone, blood vessels, ligaments, and seldom brain, heart, and entrails, nor fat, therefore bone does not make bone, nor brain make brain, but every bite contains all these. Bread is blood, but who sees it? It is fat, who sees it? …for the master craftsman in the stomach is good. He can make iron out of brimstone: he is there daily and shapes the man according to his form.
Spare a thought for the fact that the transformation of bread into flesh in sixteenth-century Europe was, to put it mildly, a live issue. Paracelsus tried not to take sides in religious debates – he memorably described Luther and the Pope as ‘two whores debating chastity’ – but none of this was merely an intellectual exercise for him. It was all about the meaning of life. His theories are ‘best described not as proto-science but as chemical theology’. Chemistry and medicine were ways of understanding the hand of god, of deciphering the secrets that underpinned the universe.
And once you knew these secrets, astonishing mysteries became available to you. Paracelsus believed that he could create life in his laboratory, in the form of a homunculus, a little humanoid grown from natural alchemy. If you want to try it at home, here's the recipe:
Let the semen of a man putrefy by itself in a sealed cucurbite with the highest putrefaction of the venter equinus [horse manure] for forty days, or until it begins at last to live, move, and be agitated, which can easily be seen. After this time it will be in some degree like a human being, but, nevertheless, transparent and without body. If now, after this, it be every day nourished and fed cautiously and prudently with the arcanum of human blood, and kept for forty weeks in the perpetual and equal heat of a venter equinus, it becomes, thenceforth, a true and living infant, having all the members of a child that is born from a woman, but much smaller. This we call a homunculus; and it should be afterwards educated with the greatest care and zeal, until it grows up and begins to display intelligence. Now, this is one of the greatest secrets which God has revealed to mortal and fallible man. It is a miracle and marvel of God, an arcanum above all arcana, and deserves to be kept secret until the last times, when there shall be nothing hidden, but all things shall be made manifest.
Heady stuff. No surprise that Paracelsus was a major source for the Faust legend, and indeed was a contemporary of the likely original Doctor Faust, with whose biography his own was often conflated.
Philip Ball tells the story well, drawing links to modern scientific ideas where necessary, but never letting you forget the profound mysticism of the time. The outstanding introductory chapter, which sets the scene of Renaissance science brilliantly, is worth the cover price alone.
Ball is a science writer, not a biographer, and there are parts of the book where the narrative drive seems to flag a little; the absence of biographical detail about Paracelsus's life also means he has to pad the book out with long diversions on contemporary mining, banking, venereal disease etc., which different readers may find fascinating or distracting. Paracelsus is worth sticking around for, a good reminder of the potential futures that were contained in the early-modern present. Ball's assessment of one of Paracelsus's theories will stand for a good summary of the man's work, and indeed of the whole fascinating period:
This is all wrong, of course, but it is not unreasonable.
(May 2014)
In Meinrad Lienert's Sagen und Legenden der Schweiz, I read that local legend accounts for the loss of Paracelsus's alchemical secrets: his powers were apparently concentrated in the pommel of his smallsword, which was lost when he died. My very free and selective translation of the deathbed scene:
Only one loyal servant remained. To him Paracelsus wanted to bequeath something, and he allowed him to choose between his smallsword and his books. The servant reflected long on this choice. But since he neither knew nor imagined the magic power of the sword's pommel, he would not take the sword and said to his master, ‘Give me your books.’ Paracelsus was disheartened, and said: ‘I would rather have seen you choose the smallsword; but so be it, you may keep the books. Take the sword and cast it into the Sihl, that none might have it.’ Now the servant saw that he had not made the best choice; he took the sword but did not throw it into the Sihl, instead hiding it in a bush so that he might come back and retrieve it upon Paracelsus's death. Then he returned to his master, who asked him, ‘Have you done what I asked of you?’, to which he answered, ‘Yes, my lord.’ Then the sorcerer, who knew well what had happened, waxed wroth and threatened to shoot the servant dead for his disobedience. Trembling, the servant went back and retrieved the sword from the bush, brought it to his master and confessed his guilt. Paracelsus repeated his earlier command, and this time the servant did throw the sword into the Sihl. The river began to roar and thunder; rocks cracked open; the ground shook; and the house of the dying Paracelsus shuddered. The wondrous doctor spoke to his servant: ‘Now know I that you have followed my command, that never shall my sword be passed down and that for me the time has come to pass from the world.’ And thus he died.
(Dec 2015)
November 11, 2009
About a year ago I was gripped with an enthusiasm for the European Reformation, and how science was emerging at that time from magic and occultism. Astrology was ubiquitous and firmly believed in by everyone. Sharing as I do a birthday with Einstein I'm inclined to believe there may be something in it myself.
This book contains a lot of information about alchemy and metal-mining, astrology and religious mores, but the main thread follows Paracelsus on his never-ending journeys across central Europe in search of knowledge. He was a wandering scholar, moving from one university town to another, narrowly escaping death on numerous occasions, getting into drunken brawls and generally collecting enemies. But it is now held by many that he was one of the pioneers of modern chemistry. A fascinating character, anyway.
This book contains a lot of information about alchemy and metal-mining, astrology and religious mores, but the main thread follows Paracelsus on his never-ending journeys across central Europe in search of knowledge. He was a wandering scholar, moving from one university town to another, narrowly escaping death on numerous occasions, getting into drunken brawls and generally collecting enemies. But it is now held by many that he was one of the pioneers of modern chemistry. A fascinating character, anyway.
May 3, 2009
A very thorough review of a somewhat obscure story about a Renaissance physician and scientist far better known than understood. Does a great job of explaining the unexplainable: how Paracelsus could have thought the things he did, even in 16th century context. Not as insightful in dealing with the surrounding historical and theological context, and sometimes caricatures better-known figures of the times. And due to its length a bit of a slog for those who might not be as convinced as I am that Paracelsus is interesting!
October 13, 2026
There’s almost this cinematic univ—nah, for our purposes here let’s go with ‘historical universe’ of under-rated mostly unknown intellectual outcasts. I define these types as those who thought outside of the box, orbited near greatness but never achieved it both during their lives and even after them but still to this present day somehow remained important enough to catch the eyes of the few who may think on the same wavelength. Obviously, this includes Paracelsus, the star of this good Philip Ball biography, but who else and are there any tie-ins? I’d definitely include Solomon Maimon (https://kobushi.substack.com/p/the-au...) who probably fits the mold better than any and also Giordano Bruno albeit given his posthumous popularity through present day, this one may be something of a stretch. But let’s avoid getting on too thin of a tangent and perhaps we’ll return to it later as just how Paracelsus began with magic and moved on to more sublunary pursuits, his life in a way returned to it and remained rooted in it.
By this point in time I cannot deny I’m a big fan of Philip Ball. Being my third book by him this year (the first being Curiosity: How Science Became Interested in Everything (https://kobushi.substack.com/p/curios...) and the other being The Book of Minds: How to Understand Ourselves and Other Beings, from Animals to AI to Aliens
(https://kobushi.substack.com/p/the-bo...)), there’s just a way he provides an intellectually-stimulating ‘popular’ account to some pretty heavy subject matter. Until now though, it’s been ‘Ball on Science’; now it’s ‘Ball on Biography (albeit one of something of a scientist)’. This one also is a bit older thus for readers who have taken on his more recent publications and notices this along with it being released by a more mainstream publisher, may wonder if it is any ‘easier’ than his other works. The short: on this front, it’s pretty much the same. In fact, I’m happy to finally take on a Ball book that has proper footnoting for a change (Curiosity had them but the publisher dropped the ball on making them workable on an eReader and surprisingly Minds only had a bibliography).
With technicals out of the way, is The Devil’s Doctor “good”? While there probably are not many Paracelsus buffs out there, does it thus give the curious not yet engaged reader a robust look at such a weird and forgotten figure? Does it mentally stimulate? The important questions for any book and even more so for one about our almost forgotten Renaissance magician. For starters, yes, it is good although that subtitle “the World of Renaissance Magic and Science” really needs to not be ignored: this is not just a biography of Paracelsus; while he remains the main star, do expect some divergence here and there as chapters don’t just shine the spotlight on him, but also give the curious reader an easy-to-digest tour of ‘magic’ in the 16th century. And on that front, this book serves as an excellent gateway to more detailed academic tomes on the subject for thanks to the footnotes, there are a quite a few out there. What may seem like a strange square-headed odd-ball loner wandering throughout the continent may only be the tip of the iceberg of occult practitioners in a time when they were more useful than doctors:
But Paracelsus was no village sorcerer local folk went to to cure their boils and hardships via incantations that more often than not worked about as well as a placebo. If he was only that, we’d have no book. Like Bruno and even Maimon, this was a figure whom we find out thought so far out of the box it thus became essentially impossible to place him anywhere. Too mystical for science, too scientific to be a mystic. Like Maimon, he had one foot firmly planted in the past: medieval alchemy and the other in what soon led to the scientific revolution. So what was he then? And should we consider him a forgotten legend of the era or disregard him like most have?
Make no mistake: Paracelsus is not a quack. He’s definitely odd and perhaps when looking at his written output from our era, he may seem as such. But even within his at times jumbled literary messes, there is beauty that also for us is common sense, but back then was essentially fighting words among the medical community:
The overall thrust of this book perhaps is not simply to provide a historical account of a unique fellow during a pretty vibrant period of European history for there are many that do that—the 16th century European history part at least—and do it a lot better (https://kobushi.substack.com/p/the-re...). Easing off on some of the ‘filler’ would have been advised. However, Ball probably wants to place the spotlight on a message fans of science may forget (or never knew existed): there were ‘edge’ case figures like Paracelsus whom unlike others from the era that may have had an interest in science and “magic”, none seemed to combine those interests like he did while leaving a treasure trove of material about his unusual belief system. He may be wrong at times (an understatement), but he was different and those like him do not deserve to be forgotten. This book accomplishes this feat and is not a hard read even for a science and even history novice of the era.
This is an engaging book and yes, ‘engaging’ when used in book reviews is about as repetitive as “drawing” when used in blurbs of academic books (really, pick any by a university publisher and try not to find it), but it’s not without issues. Within that ‘engaging’ veneer there is indeed more filler than necessary. I really wish Ball next to his monitor put up a post-it note saying “Paracelsus, Renaissance Magic and Science ONLY” and anytime he veered from this, he would quickly stop typing, delete the paragraphs, and start anew. Having a few beefy chapters on Martin Luther and an abridged history of the Reformation was nice, but pretty much pointless. Most likely any person reading this book is already familiar with this and it doesn’t really deal with P, M, and S (see that post-it note!).
Fat books are nice and you may feel like you get your money’s worth, but excessive padding can lead to clogged arteries that not even a properly performed incantation can alleviate. There also is the strange issue—I’ve encountered it now in three out of the three Philip Ball books I’ve read so far—where I’d peg them as great if not excellent reads for the first 90% (even with the filler at times), but he does not seem to be able to end a book where it naturally should end. Keeping this from becoming more bloated than it already is, I’ll end it out by noting that for those who recall “The Scouring of the Shire” chapter at the end of The Return of the King, imagine if instead of all the action and whatnot, it was just hobbits talking local politics for 20 pages as that’s how this book ends.
By this point in time I cannot deny I’m a big fan of Philip Ball. Being my third book by him this year (the first being Curiosity: How Science Became Interested in Everything (https://kobushi.substack.com/p/curios...) and the other being The Book of Minds: How to Understand Ourselves and Other Beings, from Animals to AI to Aliens
(https://kobushi.substack.com/p/the-bo...)), there’s just a way he provides an intellectually-stimulating ‘popular’ account to some pretty heavy subject matter. Until now though, it’s been ‘Ball on Science’; now it’s ‘Ball on Biography (albeit one of something of a scientist)’. This one also is a bit older thus for readers who have taken on his more recent publications and notices this along with it being released by a more mainstream publisher, may wonder if it is any ‘easier’ than his other works. The short: on this front, it’s pretty much the same. In fact, I’m happy to finally take on a Ball book that has proper footnoting for a change (Curiosity had them but the publisher dropped the ball on making them workable on an eReader and surprisingly Minds only had a bibliography).
With technicals out of the way, is The Devil’s Doctor “good”? While there probably are not many Paracelsus buffs out there, does it thus give the curious not yet engaged reader a robust look at such a weird and forgotten figure? Does it mentally stimulate? The important questions for any book and even more so for one about our almost forgotten Renaissance magician. For starters, yes, it is good although that subtitle “the World of Renaissance Magic and Science” really needs to not be ignored: this is not just a biography of Paracelsus; while he remains the main star, do expect some divergence here and there as chapters don’t just shine the spotlight on him, but also give the curious reader an easy-to-digest tour of ‘magic’ in the 16th century. And on that front, this book serves as an excellent gateway to more detailed academic tomes on the subject for thanks to the footnotes, there are a quite a few out there. What may seem like a strange square-headed odd-ball loner wandering throughout the continent may only be the tip of the iceberg of occult practitioners in a time when they were more useful than doctors:
“If you were ill, if something of yours was lost or stolen, if you feared that you had been placed under a curse, if you sought protection from evil spirits, bad luck, or pestilence, where else could you go? Only a rich man could pay the doctors’ fees. The poor were beset with countless dangers, misfortunes, and worries, and they were essentially powerless against them. What slender hope they had depended on the local sorcerer or wise woman.”
Ball, Philip. The Devil's Doctor: Paracelsus and the World of Renaissance Magic and Science (p. 80). Farrar, Straus and Giroux. Kindle Edition.
But Paracelsus was no village sorcerer local folk went to to cure their boils and hardships via incantations that more often than not worked about as well as a placebo. If he was only that, we’d have no book. Like Bruno and even Maimon, this was a figure whom we find out thought so far out of the box it thus became essentially impossible to place him anywhere. Too mystical for science, too scientific to be a mystic. Like Maimon, he had one foot firmly planted in the past: medieval alchemy and the other in what soon led to the scientific revolution. So what was he then? And should we consider him a forgotten legend of the era or disregard him like most have?
Make no mistake: Paracelsus is not a quack. He’s definitely odd and perhaps when looking at his written output from our era, he may seem as such. But even within his at times jumbled literary messes, there is beauty that also for us is common sense, but back then was essentially fighting words among the medical community:
“(Paracelsus writes:) Therefore man is his own doctor; for as he helps nature she gives him what he needs, and gives him his herbal garden according to the requirements of his anatomy. If we consider and observe all things fundamentally we discover that in ourselves is our physician and in our own nature are all things that we need. Take our wounds: what is needed for the healing of wounds? Nothing except that the flesh should grow from within outwards, not from the outside inwards. Therefore the treatment of wounds is a defensive treatment, that no contingency from without may hinder our nature in her working. In this way our nature heals itself and levels and fills up itself, as surgery teaches the experienced surgeon.” (page 262)
The overall thrust of this book perhaps is not simply to provide a historical account of a unique fellow during a pretty vibrant period of European history for there are many that do that—the 16th century European history part at least—and do it a lot better (https://kobushi.substack.com/p/the-re...). Easing off on some of the ‘filler’ would have been advised. However, Ball probably wants to place the spotlight on a message fans of science may forget (or never knew existed): there were ‘edge’ case figures like Paracelsus whom unlike others from the era that may have had an interest in science and “magic”, none seemed to combine those interests like he did while leaving a treasure trove of material about his unusual belief system. He may be wrong at times (an understatement), but he was different and those like him do not deserve to be forgotten. This book accomplishes this feat and is not a hard read even for a science and even history novice of the era.
This is an engaging book and yes, ‘engaging’ when used in book reviews is about as repetitive as “drawing” when used in blurbs of academic books (really, pick any by a university publisher and try not to find it), but it’s not without issues. Within that ‘engaging’ veneer there is indeed more filler than necessary. I really wish Ball next to his monitor put up a post-it note saying “Paracelsus, Renaissance Magic and Science ONLY” and anytime he veered from this, he would quickly stop typing, delete the paragraphs, and start anew. Having a few beefy chapters on Martin Luther and an abridged history of the Reformation was nice, but pretty much pointless. Most likely any person reading this book is already familiar with this and it doesn’t really deal with P, M, and S (see that post-it note!).
Fat books are nice and you may feel like you get your money’s worth, but excessive padding can lead to clogged arteries that not even a properly performed incantation can alleviate. There also is the strange issue—I’ve encountered it now in three out of the three Philip Ball books I’ve read so far—where I’d peg them as great if not excellent reads for the first 90% (even with the filler at times), but he does not seem to be able to end a book where it naturally should end. Keeping this from becoming more bloated than it already is, I’ll end it out by noting that for those who recall “The Scouring of the Shire” chapter at the end of The Return of the King, imagine if instead of all the action and whatnot, it was just hobbits talking local politics for 20 pages as that’s how this book ends.
Read
July 26, 2009Written for a popular audience, and I think it succeeds in that respect. Ball is clearly knowledgeable, his writing is fine, and it's certainly a compelling read, even if depth is often sacrificed for breadth. (The implication that he is writing about Paracelsus in spite of himself is kind of a turn-off, too.) I found the citations frustrating — for the most part, only direct quotes are footnoted. He makes a lot of pretty strong assertions — not to mention stating theories as facts (Chapter 20, I'm lookin' at you!) — and I would have appreciated more references.
April 15, 2018
Plenty of good stuff, but too little on what Paracelsus actually did and how and why it was so much more successful than his contemporaries. Lots of diversions into other figures of the time, and too little on the actual works of the man himself which are dismissed as incoherent. Paracelsus was clearly a genius, but Ball seems more interested in debunking and cutting him down than understanding his insights.
As with biographers of Newton, the magic side seems like an embarrassment rather than part of a greater whole.
As with biographers of Newton, the magic side seems like an embarrassment rather than part of a greater whole.
Read
July 3, 2025A biography of one remarkable, infuriating man which doubles as an intellectual history of his age and also as a study of how ideas progress and paradigms change. It's nearly two decades old itself now, and some of what Ball is getting at has become more widely accepted in that time; you're less likely these days to find anyone who's been paying the remotest attention who wouldn't accept that Newton was a mystic, that the astronomers who overturned the Ptolemaic universe were themselves also astrologers, or, most crucially here, that the lines between chemistry and alchemy remained blurred for longer than it was once polite to admit. Hell, the liminal figures in this book even include Pico and Ficino, both also stars of Ada Palmer's recent Inventing The Renaissance. But what makes Paracelsus so fascinating, for Ball, is that while Copernicus or Newton might have invoked natural law and such while overturning the old certainties, from our modern perspective we can still say that they were, on the whole, correct. Whereas Paracelsus exploded the old Galenic medicine based around the four humours, laid the first foundations of biochemistry...and was, for the most part, fabulously, extravagantly wrong. Presenting himself as an empiricist, in opposition to abstracted old physicians devoted to their dusty old authorities, Paracelsus nonetheless seemed unable to resist extrapolating grand theoretical and metaphysical edifices at least as convoluted as those that had gone before – and ones which, all being the work of one man, had less excuse for their many complications and confusions. So yes, sometimes when he finds himself at odds with the establishment it's because they're hidebound old bastards – but sometimes it's because he is waving around neologisms without even being consistent in what he means by them, like generations of charlatans before and since. Then too, he was one of those people with the unenviable gift of being able to start a fight in an empty room; one of the stories running in parallel with Paracelsus' here is that of the similarly combative and far less likeable Martin Luther, a man so literally and figuratively full of shit* that you begin to understand why so much of Europe could still regard the papacy at its most grotesquely corrupt as the lesser evil. And compared to the destruction the wars of religion would wreak, the controversies around Paracelsus, bitter as they were, mostly retain at least an edge of comedy. Looking back at centuries of accounts determined either to vilify his protagonist or else treat him as purely a misunderstood genius, Ball instead gives us a far more interesting mixture, almost a Sisyphus who does it to himself: "We watch Paracelsus in Basle as though seeing a man run headlong towards a precipice. Like an indestructible lunatic, he will do so again and again throughout his life." Somehow both the saddest and most heartening detail comes when Ball looks at how come Paracelsus' medicine got such good results, given the many problems with his approach, and concludes that a lot of it may have been because, unlike the Galenic practitioners with their bloodletting and padding in wounds, he simply had the sense often to leave well enough alone and let people recover.
*A substance of which there is plenty in this book, by the way. I thought I was mostly doing quite well with it until we got to the reusable laxatives.
*A substance of which there is plenty in this book, by the way. I thought I was mostly doing quite well with it until we got to the reusable laxatives.
March 26, 2025
Theophrastus von Hohenheim, or Philip Aureoulus Theophrastus Bombastus von Hohenheim, or Paracelsus, was a transitional figure who bridged the gap between the Galenic doctors of old and the alchemists of dubious ability with the pharmacologists and doctors of the modern era. Where the former believed in balancing the four humours (blood, black bile, yellow bile, and phlegm), Paracelsus believed in applying curatives that had proven successful, though his methods retained some of the mystical--believing that cures and diseases (which isn't altogether incorrect) varied by the environment in which one lived, for example.
While Ball's book mentions Paracelsus in the title, the presence of Paracelsus is often used as an example contrasting the shifting methods of scientific study and medicinal treatment. In many ways, Paracelsus is the perfect example. He is a man who, purportedly anyway, uses empirical evidence to support his findings rather than relying upon centuries' old medicinal practices, but uses religion or a type of rural magic to rationalize why it works. At the same time, the more one reads about Paracelsus, the more it seems like his insights are often the consequence of the sheer volume of his hypotheses, which are often so convoluted as to seem nonsensical.
He did, notably, suggest minimizing surgery and remove packing for wounds to allow the body to repair itself, cleaning and removing as much surgical or infected material as possible (while contradictoraly believing in the power of putrefaction--more on this in a moment), which was sublime with respect to stemming infection and the promotion of healing. He is also responsible for identifying that often the distinction between a curative and poison is dosage, which is evident on every over-the-counter drug you buy.
On the other hand, he also described a method for creating human life without normal fertilization, which he likely borrowed from Islamic tradition, that involved putting semen in a sealed glass container along with horse poop (a nod to the incorrect theory of spontaneous generation), allowing it to putrefy (as mentioned earlier), and feeding the nascent creature that formed human blood for 40 weeks until it became a tiny human (i.e., homunculus). It's tempting to give credit to a theory that claims some humans came from sperm mixed with horse crap and fed human blood, then hypothesize about what quality of human this would produce.
Paracelsus' life is a tumultuous and adventurous one. He travels extensively, criss-crossing Europe and northern Africa, penetrating western Asia, and falling in and out of grace with city administrators, Lutherans, Emperors, always at odds with classically trained doctors of the old school, volatile and disheveled, revered by supporters as a brilliant thinker by his supporters and reviled as a sorcerer by his detractors (of which the former sometimes became the latter), a contemporary of the cantankerous Martin Luther, the brilliant Erasmus, Nicolaus Copernicus, and other revolutionary thinkers responsible for a world undergoing a seismic shift through the Reformation and Renaissance.
Philip Ball manages to organize a whirlwind of events (as evinced by 20 pages of referenced documents and an additional, densely packed six-page bibliography) and arrange them into a coherent cosmos of events, revolving around the wildly eccentric Theophrastus von Hohenheim at the center.
While Ball's book mentions Paracelsus in the title, the presence of Paracelsus is often used as an example contrasting the shifting methods of scientific study and medicinal treatment. In many ways, Paracelsus is the perfect example. He is a man who, purportedly anyway, uses empirical evidence to support his findings rather than relying upon centuries' old medicinal practices, but uses religion or a type of rural magic to rationalize why it works. At the same time, the more one reads about Paracelsus, the more it seems like his insights are often the consequence of the sheer volume of his hypotheses, which are often so convoluted as to seem nonsensical.
He did, notably, suggest minimizing surgery and remove packing for wounds to allow the body to repair itself, cleaning and removing as much surgical or infected material as possible (while contradictoraly believing in the power of putrefaction--more on this in a moment), which was sublime with respect to stemming infection and the promotion of healing. He is also responsible for identifying that often the distinction between a curative and poison is dosage, which is evident on every over-the-counter drug you buy.
On the other hand, he also described a method for creating human life without normal fertilization, which he likely borrowed from Islamic tradition, that involved putting semen in a sealed glass container along with horse poop (a nod to the incorrect theory of spontaneous generation), allowing it to putrefy (as mentioned earlier), and feeding the nascent creature that formed human blood for 40 weeks until it became a tiny human (i.e., homunculus). It's tempting to give credit to a theory that claims some humans came from sperm mixed with horse crap and fed human blood, then hypothesize about what quality of human this would produce.
Paracelsus' life is a tumultuous and adventurous one. He travels extensively, criss-crossing Europe and northern Africa, penetrating western Asia, and falling in and out of grace with city administrators, Lutherans, Emperors, always at odds with classically trained doctors of the old school, volatile and disheveled, revered by supporters as a brilliant thinker by his supporters and reviled as a sorcerer by his detractors (of which the former sometimes became the latter), a contemporary of the cantankerous Martin Luther, the brilliant Erasmus, Nicolaus Copernicus, and other revolutionary thinkers responsible for a world undergoing a seismic shift through the Reformation and Renaissance.
Philip Ball manages to organize a whirlwind of events (as evinced by 20 pages of referenced documents and an additional, densely packed six-page bibliography) and arrange them into a coherent cosmos of events, revolving around the wildly eccentric Theophrastus von Hohenheim at the center.
June 3, 2018
I ran into Paracelsus reading Daniel Boorstin's "The Discoverers" and Barzun's "From Dawn to Decadence". Both these authors made him seem so fascinating, that I knew I had to find a biography of this amazing man. Now that I have read one, I think the small mentions in the previous two books did as much in service of his memory than this whole book.
Please understand, this is a great read, with lots of other people running around (Luther looms large, as he should) and the attending history that was contemporaneous with Paracelsus's life is important and fascinating. There is also quite a bit of fun in looking at the intricate, carefully constructed pseudo sciences of the time, even if in the end it is largely a waste of thought.
Unfortunately, Paracelsus himself was so frequently incorrect in his work that I found it hard to understand why the man was so important. I guess because people actually listened to this guy, who does seem to get closer to a modern approach to the scientific method than many (but in no way all) thinkers of the time.
I would like to include a few quotes from the author that appear to sum up the book pretty well.
"Since there seems to be no need for Paracelsus, his continuing presence cannot be explained by any deep validity or novelty in his ideas."
"His was instead the thankless task of preparing for the hegemony of science, lacking the tools he needed, derided by onlookers, and having no real notion of what it was he was doing."
And one from Boorstin who I guess addresses my concerns with this ...
"If his arguments weren't right, his insights and his hunches were."
So, an interesting read, but largely inessential. May serve as a decent primer in Renaissance thought, but there are much better books on this era.
Please understand, this is a great read, with lots of other people running around (Luther looms large, as he should) and the attending history that was contemporaneous with Paracelsus's life is important and fascinating. There is also quite a bit of fun in looking at the intricate, carefully constructed pseudo sciences of the time, even if in the end it is largely a waste of thought.
Unfortunately, Paracelsus himself was so frequently incorrect in his work that I found it hard to understand why the man was so important. I guess because people actually listened to this guy, who does seem to get closer to a modern approach to the scientific method than many (but in no way all) thinkers of the time.
I would like to include a few quotes from the author that appear to sum up the book pretty well.
"Since there seems to be no need for Paracelsus, his continuing presence cannot be explained by any deep validity or novelty in his ideas."
"His was instead the thankless task of preparing for the hegemony of science, lacking the tools he needed, derided by onlookers, and having no real notion of what it was he was doing."
And one from Boorstin who I guess addresses my concerns with this ...
"If his arguments weren't right, his insights and his hunches were."
So, an interesting read, but largely inessential. May serve as a decent primer in Renaissance thought, but there are much better books on this era.
July 31, 2018
This is supposed to be a book about Paracelsus, but it's more about his time than the man himself. Do we really need to rehash Luther's clash with Zwingli?
The author continually emphasises that Paracelsus was not a scientist. Our hero's books on medicine, astrology, chemistry and theology are a muddle of guesswork and prejudice. Just occasionally, as if by chance, he happens to say something that later ages approve of. That leaves me with no clear idea of where he fits in the history of science, where his greatness lies, indeed why he matters at all.
The author continually emphasises that Paracelsus was not a scientist. Our hero's books on medicine, astrology, chemistry and theology are a muddle of guesswork and prejudice. Just occasionally, as if by chance, he happens to say something that later ages approve of. That leaves me with no clear idea of where he fits in the history of science, where his greatness lies, indeed why he matters at all.
February 9, 2015
Since I discovered Philip Ball and his writings, I have been reading everything he produces. In my opinion, he is by far the best science writer. I am also interested in reading everything about Paracelsus since I consider himself one of my heroes in science and medicine no matter what people think about him. I think he played a very important role in modernization of chemistry and medicine.
If you think this book is an ordinary biography, you are mistaken. The book is really well written with the most interesting stories and endless journeys of Paracelsus. You will not only read his life, his work and trips; but also the political and religious environment of his age.
If you ever read anything about Paracelsus, you probably know that he traveled almost anywhere accessible in 16th century to learn how different people fight the diseases. He was outspoken, and he had "extreme" ideas and sometimes practices that gave him trouble. To him, schools were not really the only places that you can learn a profession: "At all the German schools, you cannot learn as much as the Frankfurt fair." Traveling was so important for him that once he said "If a man wishes to recognize many diseases, let him travel."
I think the book is a fascinating work on Paracelsus. Unlike several other books, the book does not have a fixed idea on Paracelsus' character or whether we should take him seriously or not. This makes the book even more special by allowing us to have our own opinion.
I strongly recommend this book for science, medicine, philosophy, philosophy of science and chemistry enthusiasts. My personal opinion is that Paracelsus was a great man and scientist and we owe him a lot. Since I first heard of his name when I was a little boy, I always felt very close to him. What I like him the most as Philip Ball says "always he was no one's man but his own."
http://chemdiary.blogspot.com/2015/04...
If you think this book is an ordinary biography, you are mistaken. The book is really well written with the most interesting stories and endless journeys of Paracelsus. You will not only read his life, his work and trips; but also the political and religious environment of his age.
If you ever read anything about Paracelsus, you probably know that he traveled almost anywhere accessible in 16th century to learn how different people fight the diseases. He was outspoken, and he had "extreme" ideas and sometimes practices that gave him trouble. To him, schools were not really the only places that you can learn a profession: "At all the German schools, you cannot learn as much as the Frankfurt fair." Traveling was so important for him that once he said "If a man wishes to recognize many diseases, let him travel."
I think the book is a fascinating work on Paracelsus. Unlike several other books, the book does not have a fixed idea on Paracelsus' character or whether we should take him seriously or not. This makes the book even more special by allowing us to have our own opinion.
I strongly recommend this book for science, medicine, philosophy, philosophy of science and chemistry enthusiasts. My personal opinion is that Paracelsus was a great man and scientist and we owe him a lot. Since I first heard of his name when I was a little boy, I always felt very close to him. What I like him the most as Philip Ball says "always he was no one's man but his own."
http://chemdiary.blogspot.com/2015/04...
October 17, 2021
Único livro autointitulado biográfico sobre o personagem Paracelso, médico suíço do período renascentista (1493-1541), publicado em português. É também um dos poucos, talvez o único, que tenta ser imparcial com essa figura médica lendária e tenta explicar e analisar sua trajetória de vida relativa às crenças e vivências do período medieval. Talvez, por possuir este objetivo, peque em relação à descrição de suas contribuições.
Paracelso, pseudônimo de Philippus Aureolus Theophrastus Bombastus von Hohenheim, é uma figura histórica polêmica, assim como o foi no período em que viveu. Até hoje, ainda se discute se sua escrita prolífica impactou realmente a ciência ou apenas o ocultismo, o que o autor também não deixa claro em seu texto.
Paracelso, pseudônimo de Philippus Aureolus Theophrastus Bombastus von Hohenheim, é uma figura histórica polêmica, assim como o foi no período em que viveu. Até hoje, ainda se discute se sua escrita prolífica impactou realmente a ciência ou apenas o ocultismo, o que o autor também não deixa claro em seu texto.
“O cirurgião e o inquisidor só diferiam por sua motivação: fora isso, seus conjuntos de facas, serras e pinças para cortar, perfurar, queimar e amputar em muito se pareciam.” – Pag 45 – Cap. 4: O bastão e a Cobra /
As polêmicas em torno do seu nome são inúmeras, pois, para começar, Paracelso se posicionava contra o estereótipo médico da época:
1. Não se vestia com sedas e pompas
2. Defendia que o médico deveria sempre viajar para aprender com o povo e não com o conhecimento fechado das faculdades
3. Acreditava no empirismo para evolução dos tratamentos médicos
4. Produzia suas próprias poções e elixires, indo contra a relação entre médicos e boticários“Paracelso tem a convicção de que os médicos não são apenas tolos equivocados mas enganadores deliberados que sabem que a sua medicina não tem utilidade, mas persistem com ela, pois lhe traz lucro.”
Pag. 156. Cap. 9: Elixir e quintessência
5. Falava o que pensava, apresentando pouco tato político e social
6. Atuava também com procedimentos cirúrgicos, “sujando as mãos”, algo impensável numa época em que havia distinção entre médicos e cirurgiões-dentistas
7. Acreditava que as respostas estavam na natureza, nas estrelas e no universo e que, o bom médico precisava estudar alquimia, astronomia e astrologia para entender as doenças
Talvez com base neste último, ainda hoje Paracelso seja tão ligado ao mundo do Ocultismo, fato que, lá atrás, também serviu para desacreditá-lo perante seus pares. Ele ainda desprezava o ensino tradicional e a argumentação clássica. Preferia a linguagem do povo, falava em alemão ao invés do latim (embora soubesse os dois idiomas), mas sempre possuía dificuldade quando em debates com outros médicos, exatamente por essa dificuldade com o ensino regular catedrático.“Essa ideia de que a matéria ganha existência através de um tipo de revelação alquímica é, fundamentalmente, não cientifica, mas teológica. (...) Para Paracelso, o Gênesis era um conto de alquimia (...).” Pg 243. Cap. 14: Além das maravilhas
Posto isso, o livro tem seus méritos em explicar, a cada curva da vida de Paracelso, a relação entre o seu posicionamento com o pensamento da época. Depreende-se que enquanto as crenças “revolucionárias” e a “língua ferina” o afastavam dos catedráticos e médicos ortodoxos, sua eficácia em resolver problemas, seus preços e linguagem mais acessível o aproximavam do povo. Ganhava fama em cada problema de saúde que resolvia e em seus discursos que buscavam relacionar a cura à natureza e às conjunções (alinhamento de estrelas e planetas). Numa época em que a astrologia e a astronomia ainda se confundiam, Paracelso oferecia mais que a cura palpável mas também um efeito “placebo”, talvez, ao inserir o ocultismo em suas curas.“Mas a grande atração da astrologia era seu poder ‘explicador’. A explosão de interesse pelas artes ocultas (...) estava relacionada aos medos e dificuldades da época (...). O único antídoto para o desespero era a ilusão de controle, e isso a astrologia providenciava.” – Pag 269. Cap. 15 – Estrela e ascendente
Retrata bem, como livro histórico-científico, como a revolução de Lutero e dos anabatistas em meio à semente do pensamento renascentista, moldava em parte, as atuações de Paracelso. Em outros momentos, ainda que fugazes, traz dados contraditórios, pois o mesmo P. que contradiz Lutero age e fala de forma bem parecida, sendo ambos muito extremistas e de pouco cuidado com o modo como suas palavras impactavam os ouvintes.“Lutero estava preparado para encorajar as reações extremadas dos príncipes, e suas palavras chocavam até mesmo aqueles que eram convocados para executar suas decisões: (...) Portanto, a qualquer um deve ser permitido castigar, assassinar, esfaquear, abertamente ou não, lembrando que nada pode ser mais venenoso, diabólico ou ameaçador do que um rebelde.’” Pg 127. Cap 7 – Revolução sob o signo do Sapato
Como livro biográfico, o autor peca repetidamente. Philip Ball é um escritor de ciência e não biografista, o que se reflete em sua escrita que não flui e parece se posicionar em cima do muro entre descrever a trajetória do médico e explicar a época renascentista. Além disso, ao mesmo tempo em que abandona a biografia e mergulha em explicações sobre minérios, astronomia, química e outros, também não consegue identificar se Paracelso contribuiu ou não para a ciência, sempre trazendo a mancha do ocultismo para as suas realizações.
Desta forma, o livro ainda é a melhor opção bibliográfica que se tem hoje disponível sobre Paracelso. Despido de um viés puramente ocultista, consegue transitar entre a vida do médico e os conceitos renascentistas de alquimia, metalurgia e transmutação, além de tentar explicar os confusos neologismos do médico suíço. Não é uma bibliografia perfeita mas, caso lido com atenção e carinho, pode-se aproveitar muito como conhecimento científico e histórico, além de importantes conselhos aos médicos: aprender com os pacientes e ouvi-los, pois a medicina se encontra em todo o lugar e não apenas nas universidades.
May 23, 2014
I loved this book. It was interesting to read the worldview of that time period and this man's life was incredibly interesting. Outspoken, slight mad and prone to pissing everyone off. I can relate. Highly recommend.
September 27, 2026
This book was supposed to be about a doctor from the 1500s named Paracelsus. Instead, it was about everything BUT Paracelsus. Let me explain...
At the start of the book, Paracelsus was discussed at a cursory level. The author would describe a time and place, then make some off-handed remark about Paracelsus' opinion on the situation. I thought that was just how the introduction was structured. Then I found myself 100+ pages into it, and the book still had that introductory tone about it.
That's when I figured out the formula to the book. For starters, it seemed like the author really only knew two pieces of information about the man. 1. He knew where Paracelsus had traveled around Europe in the 1500s. 2. He had some of Paracelsus' writings that he could quote from. Yeah, those two things aren't enough to fill a 400-page book. So instead of writing about Paracelsus, the author picked a city where Paracelsus had been and told us EVERYTHING about that city. Lineages of kings. Anecdotes about OTHER scientists/doctors/religious leaders. Maybe the history of alchemy. And then he would throw in a comment like (and I'm paraphrasing), "...but Paracelsus never met any of these people. He likely had similar experiences. Here's a quick quote from Paracelsus about what he thought of the situation...". The formula was simply this: Place in Europe + history of anything and everything about that place + quote from Paracelsus = Chapter
I didn't finish this one. I skimmed the last 300 pages, pausing whenever I actually saw Paracelsus name mentioned. Ther were pages and pages, sometimes even whole sections, that didn't even mention him.
The author is clearly well-read. And he did his research on 1500s Europe. So if you are a history buff and want to learn about the Greek philosophers, and EVERY OTHER SCIENTIST FROM THE 1500s BUT PARACELSUS, this book is for you!
At the start of the book, Paracelsus was discussed at a cursory level. The author would describe a time and place, then make some off-handed remark about Paracelsus' opinion on the situation. I thought that was just how the introduction was structured. Then I found myself 100+ pages into it, and the book still had that introductory tone about it.
That's when I figured out the formula to the book. For starters, it seemed like the author really only knew two pieces of information about the man. 1. He knew where Paracelsus had traveled around Europe in the 1500s. 2. He had some of Paracelsus' writings that he could quote from. Yeah, those two things aren't enough to fill a 400-page book. So instead of writing about Paracelsus, the author picked a city where Paracelsus had been and told us EVERYTHING about that city. Lineages of kings. Anecdotes about OTHER scientists/doctors/religious leaders. Maybe the history of alchemy. And then he would throw in a comment like (and I'm paraphrasing), "...but Paracelsus never met any of these people. He likely had similar experiences. Here's a quick quote from Paracelsus about what he thought of the situation...". The formula was simply this: Place in Europe + history of anything and everything about that place + quote from Paracelsus = Chapter
I didn't finish this one. I skimmed the last 300 pages, pausing whenever I actually saw Paracelsus name mentioned. Ther were pages and pages, sometimes even whole sections, that didn't even mention him.
The author is clearly well-read. And he did his research on 1500s Europe. So if you are a history buff and want to learn about the Greek philosophers, and EVERY OTHER SCIENTIST FROM THE 1500s BUT PARACELSUS, this book is for you!
May 8, 2020
A fascinating journey through the life of an itinerant German physician and alchemist Philip Theophrastus Bombast von Hohenheim, a.k.a. Paracelsus, whose “new medicine” (chemical medicine, iatrochemistry) revolutionized the practice of medicine that until that point had still been based in ancient Hippocratic and Galenic ideas. In a characteristically chaotic, polemical, pugnacious and combative manner, Paracelsus traveled throughout Germany and the neighboring European countries, healing people with his alchemical remedies, making enemies of the orthodox physicians wherever he went, and writing passionately, mystically and often incoherently about his practices, embedding them in a cosmological system of an alchemical universe, Christian theology and Hermetic “chemical philosophy”.
Although his ideas had long been superseded, Paracelsus (1493-1541) was a crucial link between the world of medieval “natural magic” of alchemy and the modern scientific chemistry. Interest in his ideas and practices spurred the following generations of Paracelsian physicians to investigate further and make further steps in the development of the chemistry. One well-known theory that was developed from the Paracelsian milieu the phlogiston “principle” of combustibility, initially supposed to be akin to alchemical principle of sulphur, but ultimately revealed as oxygen after Lavoisier’s discovery during the Enlightenment in the 17th century.
This biography includes detailed accounts of Paracelsus’s continual vagabondage and is interspersed with relevant expositions of the historical and ideological background necessary for the understanding of the events in his life and the curious mixture that was his philosophy.
Although his ideas had long been superseded, Paracelsus (1493-1541) was a crucial link between the world of medieval “natural magic” of alchemy and the modern scientific chemistry. Interest in his ideas and practices spurred the following generations of Paracelsian physicians to investigate further and make further steps in the development of the chemistry. One well-known theory that was developed from the Paracelsian milieu the phlogiston “principle” of combustibility, initially supposed to be akin to alchemical principle of sulphur, but ultimately revealed as oxygen after Lavoisier’s discovery during the Enlightenment in the 17th century.
This biography includes detailed accounts of Paracelsus’s continual vagabondage and is interspersed with relevant expositions of the historical and ideological background necessary for the understanding of the events in his life and the curious mixture that was his philosophy.
September 2, 2019
Książka bywa momentami ciekawa, daje całkiem niezłe ogólne wyobrażenie o tym jak wyglądała medycyna (i szerzej: intelektualne życie Europy) w barwnych czasach Renesansu. Brakuje jej jednak jakiegoś szerszego ogólnego zamysłu czy struktury przez co ma się wrażenie, że składa się w większości z dygresji. Po prawie 500 stronach wciąż nie jestem przekonany jaką w zasadzie rolę odegrał w rozwoju medycyny i chemii Paracelsus. Mam wrażenie, że autor sam nie do końca wiedział, a Lekarza Diabła napisał raczej dlatego, że postać Paracelsusa wydała się fascynująca niż dlatego że odegrała jakąś konkretną rolę w rozwoju myśli europejskiej. Ball wprowadził do książki bez szczególnie wyraźnego celu mnóstwo historycznych postaci, których nie sposób spamiętać przez co lektura jej momentami przytłaczająca i nużąca. Nie rozwinął też kilku (dla mnie) bardzo interesujących wątków pobocznych takich jak np. przyczyny powstania "racjonalistycznego" nurtu w XIII-wiecznej teologii, który zakładał że Bóg nie zawiaduje światem w sposób bezpośredni, ale przy pomocy praw natury przez niego ustalonych. Nurt ten stał się potem podstawą dla późniejszych "empiryków" próbujących poznać i zrozumieć mechanizmy rządzące światem. No i te odniesienia do Junga, który ma rzekomo pomóc przedstawić wewnętrzne konflikty targające Paracelsusem... Wspieranie się Jungiem nie sprawia, że analiza jest bardziej wnikliwa, ani bardziej głęboka, a jedynie bardziej irytująca. I tak dobrze, że Ball z dwójki najbardziej znanych psychoanalityków wybrał Junga a nie Freuda. Podsumowując: książka ma kilka istotnych wad. Polecam raczej miłośnikom Renesansu i alchemii.
June 20, 2026
‘I am different,’ he wrote, ‘let this not upset you.’
‘But people did get upset by Paracelsus. He upset doctors and priests, her upset town authorities, Renaissance kings and princes, Lutherans, humanists, merchants, apothecaries and theologians.’
This book is both a biography of Philip Theophrastus Aureolus Bombastus von Hohenheim, who was known to later ages as Paracelsus, and a view of magic and science during the Renaissance. Paracelsus, who lived from 1493 to 1541 was a contemporary of Copernicus (1473-1543), Vesalius (1514-1564) and Martin Luther (1483-1546).
I was drawn to reading more about Paracelsus as part of learning more about alchemy, magic and science during the Renaissance. (Sometimes reading historical fiction takes me down some interesting rabbit holes.)
Paracelsus, I quickly learned, challenged the status quo in several fields but especially in medicine. He was more interested in observation and practical study rather than following the ancient Greek theories based on imbalances between the four humours. Paracelsus also studied chemistry which at the time was largely tied to alchemy.
I kept reading, following Paracelsus as he moved from place to place – often after offending the authorities. Was he difficult, I wondered, or was it that his views and practices were different from most other contemporary practitioners?
An interesting book about a fascinating man.
Jennifer Cameron-Smith
‘But people did get upset by Paracelsus. He upset doctors and priests, her upset town authorities, Renaissance kings and princes, Lutherans, humanists, merchants, apothecaries and theologians.’
This book is both a biography of Philip Theophrastus Aureolus Bombastus von Hohenheim, who was known to later ages as Paracelsus, and a view of magic and science during the Renaissance. Paracelsus, who lived from 1493 to 1541 was a contemporary of Copernicus (1473-1543), Vesalius (1514-1564) and Martin Luther (1483-1546).
I was drawn to reading more about Paracelsus as part of learning more about alchemy, magic and science during the Renaissance. (Sometimes reading historical fiction takes me down some interesting rabbit holes.)
Paracelsus, I quickly learned, challenged the status quo in several fields but especially in medicine. He was more interested in observation and practical study rather than following the ancient Greek theories based on imbalances between the four humours. Paracelsus also studied chemistry which at the time was largely tied to alchemy.
I kept reading, following Paracelsus as he moved from place to place – often after offending the authorities. Was he difficult, I wondered, or was it that his views and practices were different from most other contemporary practitioners?
An interesting book about a fascinating man.
Jennifer Cameron-Smith
November 17, 2018
The medieval traveling physician who called himself Paracelsus is a curious figure, verging into mythical dimensions during his own lifetime. His medical treatments were based on experiment, on actual contact with his patients in a period when most doctors left hands-on work to barber/surgeons and relied on bleeding their patients according the humoral theories of Galen. His work was also steeped in alchemical theories encompassing health, disease, the use of metals like mercury and antimony to treat illness, even the transmutation of metals, and a religious philosophy that agreed with almost no one else's. Philip Ball does an excellent job of connecting the dots between Paracelsus and Martin Luther, Plato and Faust, while explaining how his very name embodied some of his most controversial traits - Paracelsus was the Latin name he used instead of Philip Theophrastus Aureolus Bombast von Hohenheim. It's clear that Paracelsus had vast ambitions but also fell short of the mark on many counts. And yet, almost by accident, he did give birth to the more scientific sides of chemistry and medicine and pharmacology even while being chased out of one town after another. A well written and detailed exploration of the man, the times, and his ideas.
March 23, 2025
Ball does an excellent job of presenting the life and work of such a complicated figure as Paracelsus (Theophrastus von Hohenheim), an early 16th Century alchemist, doctor, author, and astronomer. Alternately described by contemporaries as a visionary, lunatic, wonder-worker, drunkard, humanist, heretic, and charlatan, Paracelsus was an extremely divisive character in his own time, and even more so in much of the 16th and 17th Centuries. This wasn't helped by the fact that he was highly confrontational and made Galileo look like a model of diplomacy. This book also includes a lot of information about medicine and science in the Middle Ages and Renaissance as well as a good bit on the early Reformation. Some authors "pad out" their biographies where information is lacking with a lot of "local color" but I don't feel that Ball does this; since this is a popular history, the reader needs to be prepared with enough information to view Paracelsus in terms of the attitudes and beliefs of his era. Solid 3 stars.
July 27, 2023
Paracelsus seems like a super interesting guy. I was eager to read a bunch of fun stories that could bring life to his character, but I found that this book was less fun than what I thought I was getting into. There was a lot of fluff, historical tangents that I don't think was a good use of space -- some of this stuff I already learned or could've been an easy Google side-quest. I get that the introduction did a little preface about wanting to give context to this guy, but holy cow was that overkill. There were also a good handful of moments that made me aware of how big of a fan the author must be for Paracelsus, which is great but idk... unnecessary? The title and the subtitles within each chapter come off as "click-baity" in retrospect. I did learn quite a lot though, so I'm glad I was able to read this all the way through! I'm able to recount fun tidbits from my reading, so call me satisfied.
June 28, 2021
This book would be decent if it were edited down to half of its current length, but as it stands, it contains huge swaths that read like a history textbook and barely even mention Paracelsus. There are whole chapters about the Protestant Reformation, the Italian Wars, The economics of the Germanic states, etc. At best these are historical background information, and at worst they are completely unrelated to the topic of the book. In the second half, the book finally starts to pick up by digging into the life and writings of Paracelsus. This half is pretty interesting and worth reading, but I'm not sure I would recommend someone slog through the first half to get to it.
June 30, 2021
After putting this book down a few times, I recently got momentum upon restarting it from the start, and have to say it was thoroughly enjoyable and well written. Ball created a good portrait of the time period that Theophrastus Bombast von Hoenhiem walked in the world, with a significant layout of the other great mystics and maverick intellectuals of the era like Luther and Erasmus amongst many others. The only thing lacking was information on the main character, with many vague anecdotes and shadowy truths. Still, a very enjoyable historical slice of life of the Reformation era mystics.
February 10, 2023
A delightful history of the death of magic and birth of science that also manages to be a tender and complex biography of a man who defied his age as much as he defined it. It’s important to know where we come from and this book offers that experience in the vein of A Distant Mirror, if far less intimately granular (for better and for worse!). I first heard of the author through Bright Earth which I have yet to get my hands on, but upon finishing this book I eagerly await the next!
March 2, 2019
This book was all over the place. Interesting historical details of his era, but not much about Paracelsus's more esoteric beliefs (beyond rubbishing them) and why he was such a key historic figure (he's credited with discovering hydrogen, and seen as a key link between alchemy and modern chemistry). This book didn't really give the reader a good understanding of him or his work.
January 25, 2023
good but long
Very thorough and sometimes meandering, but well written and insightful. I just wanted an abridged version at times when the going was slow. I also had hoped for more on his views on magic.
Very thorough and sometimes meandering, but well written and insightful. I just wanted an abridged version at times when the going was slow. I also had hoped for more on his views on magic.
January 13, 2026
A really comprehensive look at Paracelsus and his intellectual (and material) world. It's an ambitious book that can sometimes get a little lost in the sauce, and presents a very even-handed look at the relationship of medieval and early-modern pseudoscience to its modern successor.
January 14, 2017
This book kept me comforted through a very bad bout of flu, and that says a great deal. I wouldn't say that the author was well versed in theology, and he admits that he is primarily a science historian. But he made some interesting observations about about theology and alchemy that made me startle and take a step back. I'm inspired to return to Patai's book, Jewish Alchemists, that has been lurking on my shelves since graduate school, waiting to reread without an invisible host of academics breathing on my neck.
For readers with less agenda than myself, I think this is a great tour through Renaissance to the Reformation, especially if you like the gruesome aspects of medical history. it makes some intersting observations about the origins of homeopathy, that it was not rooted in Paracelsian medicine because it distills to nondetect. However, I am not certain that the idea of a signature left behind even after such stringent distilling isn't entirely a Paracelsian notion. I'd have to review notes to find out when Avagado's insight became in common use, and perhaps to refresh my mind as to the name of the man who came up with Avagado's insight before Avagado. And here I am reflecting one of Ball familiar teaching moments, because the book is a maze of digressions. But oh so entertaining!
It's listed under my bibliophile/books about books shelf because Ball makes many observations about publishing Paracelsus, the false corpus of Paracelsus and the untranslated corpus of Paracelsus. The author has given us some panoramic views of the time period and the brutal theological wars of the time that effected Paracelsus and his dispersion of his works. As a biography we get some insight into his spiritual torment that seems to show up in his lab. Ball apparently read much of what was in translation, but notes that an enormous amount of the work is in a archaic barberous German, awaiting the attention of scholars equipped for those challenges. I found the tale of Gutenberg's apprentice particularly charming because I had never heard it before. I found his work on Paracelsus's publishers good scholarship, and clearly told, unlike the work I have encountered about my favorite theological maverick, Swedenborg. Someday I hope to return to this book, held by my city library because it is worth a reread.
For readers with less agenda than myself, I think this is a great tour through Renaissance to the Reformation, especially if you like the gruesome aspects of medical history. it makes some intersting observations about the origins of homeopathy, that it was not rooted in Paracelsian medicine because it distills to nondetect. However, I am not certain that the idea of a signature left behind even after such stringent distilling isn't entirely a Paracelsian notion. I'd have to review notes to find out when Avagado's insight became in common use, and perhaps to refresh my mind as to the name of the man who came up with Avagado's insight before Avagado. And here I am reflecting one of Ball familiar teaching moments, because the book is a maze of digressions. But oh so entertaining!
It's listed under my bibliophile/books about books shelf because Ball makes many observations about publishing Paracelsus, the false corpus of Paracelsus and the untranslated corpus of Paracelsus. The author has given us some panoramic views of the time period and the brutal theological wars of the time that effected Paracelsus and his dispersion of his works. As a biography we get some insight into his spiritual torment that seems to show up in his lab. Ball apparently read much of what was in translation, but notes that an enormous amount of the work is in a archaic barberous German, awaiting the attention of scholars equipped for those challenges. I found the tale of Gutenberg's apprentice particularly charming because I had never heard it before. I found his work on Paracelsus's publishers good scholarship, and clearly told, unlike the work I have encountered about my favorite theological maverick, Swedenborg. Someday I hope to return to this book, held by my city library because it is worth a reread.
December 26, 2016
The title tells it all; the focus upon opinions, and ideas regarding Magic, and Science circulating around the Renaissance period with glimpses into the life of Paracelsus-the enigma himself.
The tangents regarding persons, books, and principles permits one to grasp the concepts quoted from Paracelsus.
It is a grand education in early modern scientific ideas' or what passed for it. Reading the ideas, which are so far removed from what we study today, can be a moment of confusion wondering how these thoughts grew into medicine. Then, realizing, much of the speculation grew from a logic about Deity, and then from observation with very little to go upon other than imagination.
Many ideas are amusing: Paracelsus believed within each human is an alchemist that transmutes the foods, that many spirits of the world farmed, wove clothes, and enjoyed a good entertainment-as humans do.
I would easily use these book to study the mover and shakers of the times from medicine, religion, and politics; three fields Paracelsus often found himself butted against.
His persistence of his belief of what is true, and best; while moving into a new realm of experimentation to discover remedies rather than rely upon the recently recovered works of the ancient Greeks like Aristotle, and Galen.
Amidst the turmoil of the Protestant Reformation, burgeoning Renaissance, and then the Thirty Year's War, it is a wonder what was learned, and believed.
Without much information about Paracelsus' life, it is largely about his writings, the controvery that surrounded them, and their consequences which kept him on the road all of his life. It never felt like he stayed in one place even a year.
The last two chapters cover his legacy, and how his protean ideas, through his followers, became closer to what we recognize as Science.
There are few easy segues into the subjects. Often it jarred me as the authored explored another idea.
The tangents regarding persons, books, and principles permits one to grasp the concepts quoted from Paracelsus.
It is a grand education in early modern scientific ideas' or what passed for it. Reading the ideas, which are so far removed from what we study today, can be a moment of confusion wondering how these thoughts grew into medicine. Then, realizing, much of the speculation grew from a logic about Deity, and then from observation with very little to go upon other than imagination.
Many ideas are amusing: Paracelsus believed within each human is an alchemist that transmutes the foods, that many spirits of the world farmed, wove clothes, and enjoyed a good entertainment-as humans do.
I would easily use these book to study the mover and shakers of the times from medicine, religion, and politics; three fields Paracelsus often found himself butted against.
His persistence of his belief of what is true, and best; while moving into a new realm of experimentation to discover remedies rather than rely upon the recently recovered works of the ancient Greeks like Aristotle, and Galen.
Amidst the turmoil of the Protestant Reformation, burgeoning Renaissance, and then the Thirty Year's War, it is a wonder what was learned, and believed.
Without much information about Paracelsus' life, it is largely about his writings, the controvery that surrounded them, and their consequences which kept him on the road all of his life. It never felt like he stayed in one place even a year.
The last two chapters cover his legacy, and how his protean ideas, through his followers, became closer to what we recognize as Science.
There are few easy segues into the subjects. Often it jarred me as the authored explored another idea.
April 18, 2016
This is a biography of Paracelsus, a 16th century physician/alchemist/philosopher. He was controversial in his own time as either a great healer or a total fraud. He is one of the inspirations for the Faust story, a man dealing with the dark arts. The author claims that Paracelsus had a positive influence on the development of modern science even though he was wrong about essentially everything he did. (For example he thought God gave signs about the world so you would know to look for treatments of heart problems in plants with heart shaped leaves – you get the idea). The reason he is influential is that at the time physicians relied on “knowledge” transmitted from the ancients live Galen and Avicenna. Paracelsus claimed you needed to observe from and work with nature and so made “cures” with his hands based on observation. He did not use the scientific method of course, making controlled experiments, but he did not buy into revealed truth either. The book is interesting on several accounts. To me the most interesting part was the description of life and activity in the 15th and 16h century. The life style, the medicine and disease, the corruption of the church and the religious rebellion, the universities and even the mining industry. Paracelsus, like many magus of the time, was itinerant and wondered all over central Europe, teaching here, curing there, and writing everywhere. He is considered tobe among the first to use chemicals to treat disease, which is a modern principle, even though his cures were probably more harm than good. The book is too long, and I did find the biographical parts, where he lived in this town with this duke etc, to be a bit boring but the book is still worth a read for the historical and cultural information.
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