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"Summus atque felicissimus salium": The Medical Relevance of the Liquor alkahest
- Bulletin of the History of Medicine
- Johns Hopkins University Press
- Volume 76, Number 1, Spring 2002
- pp. 1-29
- 10.1353/bhm.2002.0038
- Article
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This paper analyzes the development of the concept of alkahest from its origins in the Paracelsian corpus to its mature form in the works of Joan Baptista van Helmont (1579-1644) and his successors. Historians of science have usually focused on the chemical aspects of the alkahest, taking into account especially the claims that it was a substance capable of dissolving all kinds of matter. This paper shows the medical implications of the alkahest: it was not only a "solvent," but an important means of revealing nature's secrets and of producing medicines. The properties ascribed to the alkahest fit perfectly within Helmontian theories about matter, disease, and cure.