I keep thinking about the origins of the Homunculus in Alchemy, and that Jung said it is in its essential nature the philosopher’s stone. I must be missing something. It seems there are always men who think they can create life without using an actual womb. Dr. Frankenstein comes to mind. In my last piece the homunculus gestated in a womb of horse shit, being fed on human blood.
It’s not that I doubt these babies created without women being involved existed in the first millennium; in fact I have searched secret Medieval texts which can only be viewed in a SCIF in the basement of the Vatican, and found the personal account of a prominent Alchemist from the mid-1500s. He complained that the baby was “ill formed.”
“His mouth takes up fully three quarters of his head, and his hands and feet are so out of proportion he has unintentionally wrecked the laboratory. I am forced to re-examine my attitude toward the little prick. He may be overly influenced by the horse shit.”
This was the time when medicine was emerging from magic, and the transitional figure for the emergence of targeted drugs, for example, was Paracelsus, a Swiss German. He saw the human being as containing the entire universe. He combined knowledge and skill in medicine and chemistry with theology and humanitarianism. And, there was something else in the mix: Magic.
To turn a phrase, magic is indistinguishable from advanced technology. Paracelsus had a noble birth, but just on his father’s side, so, socially, he didn’t begin life much better off than a serf. His mom’s physical labor was the property of the church, and even when he died there were claims on his belongings by the church. This, even though he was an international celebrity, whose motto was, “alterius non sit qui suus esse potest.” You don’t read Latin? Me neither. It means if possible, don’t belong to anybody but yourself.
He was popular as a doctor, and became the city physician of Basel, a job which came with a professorship at the city’s medical college, which was based in Galenic humoral theory. Galen believed that the body contains four important liquids called humors: phlegm, blood, yellow bile, and black bile. These humors must remain in balance for a person to remain healthy. If there was an imbalance in the humors, illness occurred.
Paracelsus thought the purging and bloodletting these followers of Galen were doing, in an attempt to balance the humors, was past its sell by date. When the college denied him lecture space, he found other spaces to lecture, and he delivered his lectures in common German, not Latin. Latin makes one appear to be more intelligent.
“What did he just say?”
“I think he said beware of the blue duck.”
Teaching or preaching in Latin is a class thing, by its nature conservative, and Paracelsus was not a conservative. He didn’t give a rat’s ass about Galen’s humors. He targeted the symptoms and the location of the problem with what he thought might work. Among his creations in chemistry was Laudanum.
And, this giant of medicine had a recipe for liberating a tiny man who normally lives in sperm, called a homunculus (you think you know somebody). Paracelsus used whatever he had, and that included magic. He used fasting and abstinence, but also might have a doll with the sick person’s features, like a voodoo priest uses. This doll would be destroyed and the sickness would be destroyed with it, a significant departure from using it as a murder weapon. When he was mocked for being a peasant, Paracelsus said he did, indeed, have some coarse ways from his mother’s side of the family, but that an itinerant doctor like him, who knows all kinds of healers — masseurs, barber surgeons, midwives, etc. — ends up knowing more than somebody who just follows a tradition.
Paracelsus fathered what we now call allopathy, which is an intervention in a disease process. He disparaged Galen, who was born in what is now Turkey, but settled in Greece in 129 CE (AD). He was born into money and had a high class education. He traveled extensively and knew a lot of different theories of medicine, and, after settling in Rome, in 162, became physician to more than one Roman Emperor.
Galen believed that a physician should also be a philosopher, and the theory of humors he and his followers practiced seems to me more like Chinese medicine than allopathic medicine, in that both rest on a theory of balancing, rather than on intervening. Galen was however a competent surgeon. So I have to assume fans of Paracelsus are being hard on Galen because they have no sense of humors. Galen’s theory was that individuals with sanguine temperaments are extroverted and social; choleric people have energy, passion, and charisma; melancholics are creative, kind, and considerate; and phlegmatic temperaments are characterized by dependability, kindness, and affection.
This is hilarious. Also a pretty cool review of the history of early medicine. Agreed, it's doubtful that babies could spring forth without a woman's involvement, any more than a baby can pop out of a woman when no human male interacted with her... unless by magic or advanced technology or some god or other. No telling, especially if one has no sense of humors. xoxo
Paracelsus was a contemporary of 'my' bloke, Sebastian Franck, who found his ideas mighty interesting and referred to them in his own work. Probably even borrowed large chunks: plagiarism wasn't a thing back then and copyright – what manner of devilish invention is that?
As usual Dan I enjoyed your eclectic knowledge and gift for making it all relatable and funny.