| Oh, how fortunate the medical field is with its | | | | Paracelsus (1493-1541) helped to cast alchemy |
| modern conveniences. You have the Internet to | | | | into a new form by promoting the use of |
| share knowledge on, digital imaging equipment to | | | | observations and experiments to learn about the |
| render your CT scans, and every gadget and | | | | human body. He demonstrated sneering contempt |
| gizmo up to and including "the machine that goes | | | | for the charlatans of his trade, rejecting both |
| bing!" (a Monty Python reference to you new | | | | Occultism and Gnosticism in favor of Hermetical, |
| folks!). You have accredited universities and | | | | neo-Platonic, and Pythagorean philosophies. In this |
| publicly-funded laboratories. | | | | manner, he is considered to be the tie-in between |
| But how long the human race had to grope in the | | | | ancient practice and modern science, laying the |
| dark before finally arriving at our present | | | | path for the future accomplishments of Isaac |
| enlightenment! You may even feel a sense of pity | | | | Newton and Robert Boyle. |
| for a particularly bright mind that would have been | | | | You don't get far in discussing medieval medicine |
| living in the 16th century, shaking their heads over | | | | without running into the four humours. The four |
| the "four humours" theory here and the astrology | | | | humours, who were not a British pop band which |
| charts there, bleeding patients to restore their | | | | combined Beatles rhythms with Monty Python |
| balance... and all the while with that nagging | | | | lyrics, were the foundation of accepted medical |
| suspicion in the back of their mind: "There has to | | | | practice all the way into the 19th century. The |
| be more to this that I'm just not getting!" It would | | | | four humours, bodily fluids which regulated all |
| be quite fun to travel back in time and clue some | | | | functions, were Black Bile (Melancholic), Phlegm |
| of them in. Doubtless they'd say something like, | | | | (Phlegmatic), Blood (Sanguine), and Yellow Bile |
| "No wonder I've lost so many patients! There | | | | (Choleric). Any sickness, be it psychological or |
| really isn't anything to alchemy the whole time! I | | | | physical, was attributed to the humours of the |
| knew it!" | | | | body being in an unbalanced state, with too much |
| But actually, they weren't quite as frustrated as all | | | | of one and not enough of the other. The solution |
| that, even if they did have poor luck with the | | | | was always to cut open the body and bleed off |
| occasional trepanation and the glum discovery | | | | the excess fluid. |
| that there was, in fact, no insanity-causing stone | | | | It took them centuries to think of trying herbs. |
| in the head to remove. Oh, yes, trepanation, the | | | | Originally, the Church handed down the doctrine |
| drilling of holes in the skull, was a common | | | | that God had made a cure for each ailment, and |
| practice. No less than Hippocrates had given | | | | all that remained for mortals was to match up |
| specific directions on the procedure based on its | | | | the herb to the disease. But even at this idea, |
| origin in the Greek age, and Galen elaborates on | | | | quite a bit of fumbling around was needed before |
| the procedure as well. At one burial site in France | | | | they had the system sorted out. At first it was |
| with an assumed date of 6500 BC, 40 skull had | | | | thought that plants which looked like a body organ |
| trepanation holes out of the 120 found. Many | | | | had to be the treatment for ailments of that |
| people survived this procedure and lived on for | | | | organ, and so skullcap was prescribed for |
| many years, able to regale their grandchildren with | | | | headaches, lungwort for tuberculosis, and so on. |
| their unique cranial modification. | | | | Monasteries took to keeping an herbal garden on |
| Alchemy itself was actually a very noble pursuit... | | | | the church premises, and clerics of the time had |
| in most cases. The whole business with turning | | | | this primitive form of an apothecary resource |
| lead into gold might have been a creative way to | | | | from which to draw cures. Sometimes they |
| extract financing from kings, to then be applied to | | | | picked a plant which did nothing, and sometimes |
| real research. Yet the alchemist's contributions to | | | | they got lucky and discovered another kind of |
| science are significant! Much of chemistry owes its | | | | aspirin. |
| roots to alchemy, and the studies of medicine, | | | | Of course, modern medical graduates already |
| astronomy, geology, and even physics got some | | | | know the origins of the peculiar symbols of |
| boost as well. Since alchemists also spent a lot of | | | | medicine; with the twined snakes and the mortar |
| time seeking the Panacea, the cure-all to every | | | | and pestle and all. This should serve as a constant |
| human ill, there is some cross-over between | | | | reminder: even though we've made a lot of |
| alchemy and medicine. | | | | progress in our discoveries of the world around |
| Alchemists are in fact the closest thing we have | | | | us, we will still have much farther to go. Perhaps |
| to the originators of the modern scientific method. | | | | the doctors of 5000 years in the future will |
| After years of alchemists being more stage | | | | likewise look back on our time with pity for our |
| magicians than scientists, one Philippus Aureolus | | | | primitive understanding of medicine! |