The Holy State, Book 2 · Chapter 3
Physick Proffessor… at Basil. Philip Theophrastus PARACELSUS He died at Saltzburge Ano. Dom: 1540. aged 47 yeares. W. Marshall sculprit.
CHAP. 3. The life of PARACELSUS.
PHilip Theophrastus Bombastus of Hoenhaim, or Paracelsus, born as he saith himself in the wildernesse of Helvetia, Anno 1493. of the noble and ancient family of the Hoenhaims. But Thomas Erastus making strict enquiry after his pedigree found none of his name or kinred in that place. Yet it is fit so great a Chymist should make himself to be of noble extraction: And let us believe him to be of high descent, as perchance born on some mountain in Switzerland.
As for his Education, he himself *In praefatione Chiru…giae magnae.boasts that he lived in most Universities of Europe; surely rather as a traveller then a student, and a vagrant then a traveller. Yea some will not allow him so much, and *Sennertus de …hymicorum consensu, cap. 4. pag. 35.one who hath exactly measured the length of his life, though crowding his pretended travells very close, finds not room enough for them. But 'tis too ridiculous what a *Bickerus in Hermete redivivo.Scholar of his relates, that he lived ten years in Arabia to get learning, and conversed in Greece with the Athenian Philosophers. Whereas in that age Arabia the Happy was accursed with Barbarisme, and Athens grown a stranger to her self; both which places being then subjected to the Turks, the very ruines of all learning were ruin'd there. Thus we see how he better knew to act his part, then to lay his Scene, and had not Chronologie enough to tell the clock of time, when and where to place his lies to make them like truth.
The first five & twenty years of his age he lived very civilly; being thirty years old he came to Basill, just at the alteration of Religion, when many Papists were expell'd the University, and places rather wanted Professours, then Professours places. Here by the favour of Oecolampadius he was admitted to reade Physick, & for two years behaved himself fairly, till this accident caused his departure. A rich *Bezoldus consideratione vitae & mort. p. 76. ex Andraea Iocisio.Canon of Basill being sick promised Paracelsus an hundred florens to recover him, which being restored to his health he denied to pay. Paracelsus sues him, is cast in his suit, the Magistrate adjudging him onelyonly an ordinary fee, because the cure was done presently with a few pills. The Physician enraged hereat talked treason against the State in all his discourses, till the nimblenesse of his tongue forc'd the nimblenesse of his feet, and he was fain to fly into Alsatia. Here keeping company with the Gentry of the countrey, he gave himself over to all licentiousnesse: His body was the sea wherein the tide of drunkennesse was ever ebbing and flowing; for by putting his finger in his throat he used to spew out his drink and drunkennesse together, and from that instant date himself sober to return to his cups again. Every monethmonth he had a new sute, not for pride but necessity; his apparel serving both for wearing and bedding: and having given his clothes many vomits, he gave them to the poore. Being Codrus over night, he would be Croesus in the morning, flush of money as if he carried the invisible Indies in his pocket: some suspected the devil was his pursebearer, and that he carried a spirit in the pomel of his sword his constant companion, whilest others maintain that by the heat of the furnace he could ripen any metall into gold.
All the diet he prescribed his patients was this, to eat what, and how often, they thought fitting themselves, and yet he did most strange cures. Like the quicksilver (he so much dealt with) he would never be fixt in one place, or live any where longer then a twelvemoneth: for some observe that by that time the maladies reverted again, which he formerly cured. He gave so strong physick as summoned Nature with all her force to expell the present disease, but the remnant dregs thereof afterwards reinforcing themselves did assault Nature tired out with the violence of her former task, and easily subdued it.
His Scholars brag that the fragments of his learning would feast all the Philosophers in the world, boasting that the gout, the disgrace of Physick, was the honour of Paracelsus, who by curing it removed that scandall from his profession: whereas others say he had little Learning, and lesse Latine. When any asked him the name of an herb he knew not, he would tell them there was no *Beroldus ut priùs, pag. 77.use thereof in Physick; and yet this man would undertake not onelyonly to cure men, but to cure the Art of curing men, and reform Physick it self.
As for his religion, it would as well pose himself as others to tell what it was. He boasted that shortly he would order Luther and the Pope, as well as he had done Galen and Hippocrates. He was never seen to pray, and seldome came to Church. He was not onelyonly skilled in naturall Magick (the utmost bounds whereof border on the suburbs of hell) but is charged to converse constantly with familiars. Guilty he was of all vices but wantonnesse; and I find an *Oporinus in Epist. de Paracel…o.honest man his Compurgatour, that he was not given to women; perchance he drank himself into wantonnesse and past it, quenching the fire of his lust by piling fuell too hard and fast upon it.
Boasting that he could make a man immortall, he himself died at fourty seven years in the City of Saltzburg. His Scholars say he was poysoned through the envy (that dark shadow ever waiting on a shining merit) and malice of his adversaries. However his body should have been so fenced with antidotes, that the battery of no poyson might make a breach therein; except we impute it more to his neglect then want of skill, and that rather his own security then his enemies malice brought him to his grave. But it may be he was willing to die, counting a twelvemoneths time enough to stay in one place, and fourty seven years long enough to live in one world. We may more admire that so beastly a drunkard lived so long, then that so skilfull a man died so soon. In a word, He boasted of more then he could do, did more cures seemingly then really, more cures really then lawfully; of more parts then learning, of more fame then parts; a better Physician then a man, and a better Chirurgeon then Physician.