1493-1541
Alchemist And Physician

Early Years. Philippus Aureolus Theophrastus Bombast von Hohenheim, later known by the simpler cognomen Paracelsus, was born in the Swiss village of Einsiedeln, where his father practiced medicine. Paracelsus's mother died while he was still a child, and the family moved to Villach, a mining town in Austria, where he grew up observing his father treat the particular diseases that afflicted miners. Paracelsus also absorbed the chemistry and lore surrounding mining and metallurgy. He was schooled by local clerics, from whom he received a wide-ranging exposure to both orthodox and mystical religion and philosophy, which were feeding the discussions and social unrest in the early sixteenth century that gave rise to the Reformation. It is no wonder, then, that Paracelsus's extensive writing, popular preaching, and teaching as an adult revealed a syncretistic combination of chemical theory, medicine, and heterodox religious ideas, which he...