Paracelsus

Theophrastus Bombast von Hohenheim (1493 to 1541), known as Paracelsus, was a Swiss physician, alchemist, lay theologian and philosopher of the German Renaissance. Born in Einsiedeln in the Canton of Schwyz, he was educated by his father in botany, medicine, mineralogy and natural philosophy, studied medicine at Basel and Vienna, took his doctorate at Ferrara and travelled widely across Europe between 1517 and 1524. He was a pioneer of the medical revolution of the Renaissance, emphasizing observation together with received wisdom, pioneered the use of chemicals and minerals in medicine, and is credited as the father of toxicology. In 1527 he lectured in German at the University of Basel and publicly burned the works of Galen and Avicenna. His philosophy had an affinity with the Hermetic, Neoplatonic and Pythagorean currents of the Renaissance, held science and religion to be inseparable, and largely rejected Aristotle and Galen and the theory of humours. He died in Salzburg in 1541, and Paracelsianism, the early modern medical movement inspired by his works, followed him.