Paracelsus
toxicology
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Toxicology
Difficult man
- His real name was Philippus
- Aureolus Theophrastus
- Bombastus von Hohenheim,
- and he annoyed everybody.
- He advocated keeping wounds clean,
- which annoyed his colleagues who wrapped them
- in cow dung and feathers because they believed
- infection was part of the healing process.
- He ridiculed the theory that disease
- arises from an internal imbalance
- of the four humors and can be restored
- by purging and bloodletting.
- He said that disease
- was an entity that attacked
- the body from the outside,
- not an internal imbalanced state.
- He said that bloodletting
- disturbed the harmony of the body
- and you cannot purify blood
- by lessening its quantity.
- He angered his colleagues
- by lecturing in German instead of Latin
- to make medical knowledge
- more accessible to common people.
- He condemned the authority
- of Avicenna and Galen
- and publicly threw their books
- into a bonfire on Saint John’s Day.
- He arrogantly told professors
- that their tassels and titles
- didn’t matter as long as
- their theories were never tested.
- He said, “if disease put us to the test,
- all our splendor, title, ring, and name
- will be as much help
- as a horse’s tail.”
- He quarrelled about religion
- and about fees for his services,
- and viciously slandered his opponents
- until they drove him out of town.
Some toxins
- Alcohol’s a toxic drug
- with interesting effects
- including inhibiting stress
- suppressing social graces.
- Even mercury or arsenic
- can trick a cure with low doses,
- which is called “sufficient challenge.”
- For some toxic chemicals
- maybe it’s true—there’s
- no safe minimum dose. But not sunlight,
- which can cause skin cancer
- but also produce vitamin D in the skin.
- Cobalt pigment is highly toxic,
- but in vitamin B12
- it’s essential to all animals.
- The low dose of a drug
- like salt or sugar
- can have a paradoxical effect,
- not simply overwhelm the system
- like a chemotheraputic drug.
- You’ve gotta eat a peck
- of dirt before you die, they say.
- What doesn’t kill you
- might only make you stronger.
Paracelsus showed that syphilis was contracted by contact and treated with carefully measured doses of mercury. He is credited with introducing the first pain-killer to the west, the opiate laudanum. He was the first to point out that psychology affects physiology, that unconscious fantasizing about certain diseases can make a person more vulnerable to them.
See also in The book of science:
Readings on wikipedia:
Other readings: