Studien zum Frühwerk des Paracelsus im Bereich Medizin und Naturkunde (review)

Behind the long shadow cast by Karl Sudhoff (1853–1938) across the discipline of medical history lay his work in researching and editing the writings of Paracelsus (1493–1541). Medical historians have committed themselves to other agendas. Yet the shadow cast by Sudhoff's foundational work still sets parameters for the study of Paracelsus.

An inquiry would be needed to account for the magnification of Paracelsus's aura a century ago by German nationalism with its interpretation of the past as an anticipation of progress and dawning German preeminence. Udo Benzenhöfer's splendid scholarship on the life, shortcomings, and aura of Paracelsus should qualify him as an ideal candidate for such an investigation. Unfortunately, his "Studies in the Early Work(s) of Paracelsus in the Sphere of Medicine and Knowledge of Nature" mainly list and compare words in the first five volumes of Sudhoff's edition.

Benzenhöfer rightly doubts that everything in these volumes represents the early medical-naturalistic writing of Paracelsus. But the "early period" was never more than a tentative compartment into which Sudhoff deposited some undated works. Along with nearly everything in the Sudhoff edition, these works were reedited between 1922 and 1933 from Huser's edition of 1589. The early period rests on Sudhoff's authority. He later cast doubt on his dating. Why then does Paracelsus scholarship remain so in thrall to Sudhoff's fleeting impression that a leading scholar asks in effect which works should be eliminated from his early period? Presumably one wants to believe that among the mass of texts, certain undated writings must have preceded the earliest dated ones from his brief Basel academic activity (March 1527 to February 1528). There is another early authorial period, that of the theological writings of 1524–25 edited by Goldammer. But medical historians prefer a medical revolutionary who dabbled in doctrinal controversy to a religious enthusiast with an extensive, yet conventional, medical knowledge. Pre-Basel medical writing might bolster his claim of having arrived at key insights by traveling and studying nature.

The first three volumes are decisive. Vague references in Das sechste Buch in der Arznei and Archidoxis to "our young blood" (unser jung blut) or "our young childish days" (unsern jungen kintlichen tagen) are taken as indicative of a pre-Basel origin (205–6). This conclusion is pivotal but tenuous. Even if we could be certain that "young" is not used in the second citing in a nonbiological, epochal sense (see Grimms' definitions 12 and 13), how much younger would Paracelsus have been, say in 1526? In an age that privileged seniority, such references may have been formulaic modesty.

But the main difficulty lies in the context of the entire corpus. One cannot claim that early or pre-Basel works are recognizable by the absence of concepts or themes arising only in the Basel period, unless subsequent writings also contain such terms. The Basel-period terms "taphneus" or "essatum" may be missing in writings assumed prior to Basel, but they are also missing in post-Basel writings. Certain "early" writings do not cite the tria prima in a canonical way, but they are no less marginal in the Paragranum of 1530. Without the established date of Paragranum, we could use Benzenhöfer's criteria to date it before 1527.

Benzenhöfer is at his best when discussing the substance of terms. To comprehend the development of the corpus will require something more than just inventorying words: interpretation.