Article ID: CBB335011448

Fire, Vulcanus, Archeus, and Alchemy: A Hybrid Close-Distant Reading of Paracelsus’s Thought on Active Agents (2024)

unapi

The Swiss physician and philosopher Theophrastus von Hohenheim, called Paracelsus (1493-1541) is known for his strong advocacy of medical alchemy. That his natural philosophy was tied to medical alchemy is perhaps uncontroversial, but just how it was so is less straightforward. This article provides an insight into the connection between the two by means of Paracelsus’s concept of active agents, with an emphasis on fire, its master Vulcanus, and the associated term Archeus. I will show how these evolved in the thought of Paracelsus by taking an evolutionary view of his works. The complexity of his views comes to light as a result of employing the method of hybrid reading, which integrates the traditional close reading technique with the much more novel one of distant reading. The latter is part of the emerging field of digital and computational humanities, and involves the analysis of corpora by means of digital tools, including computer programming (Python). In the article, I will attempt to combine distant and close reading and showcase how such hybrid reading approaches may provide new insights into historical corpora.

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Article Carmen Schmechel (2024) Medicine, Life, and Transformations of Matter. Ambix: Journal of the Society for the History of Alchemy and Chemistry (pp. 233-242). unapi

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https://data.isiscb.org/isis/citation/CBB335011448/

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Authors & Contributors
Gantenbein, Urs Leo
Kahn, Didier
Alegre Pérez, María Esther
Ball, Philip
Debus, Allen G.
DeVun, Leah
Journals
Ambix: Journal of the Society for the History of Alchemy and Chemistry
Dynamis: Acta Hispanica ad Medicinae Scientiarumque Historiam Illustrandam
Early Science and Medicine: A Journal for the Study of Science, Technology and Medicine in the Pre-modern Period
Gesnerus
Journal of the History of Ideas
Micrologus: Nature, Sciences and Medieval Societies
Publishers
Brill
Dover
Harvard University Press
Heinemann
J. Vrin, Impr. de la Manutention
Oxford University Press
Concepts
Alchemy
Medicine
Natural philosophy
Chemistry
Natural magic
Historical method
People
Paracelsus, Theophrastus von Hohenheim
Cardano, Girolamo
Alighieri, Dante
Descartes, René
Fracastoro, Girolamo
Galen
Time Periods
Renaissance
16th century
17th century
Early modern
Medieval
18th century
Places
Europe
France
Italy
Brazil
Germany
Spain
Institutions
National Library of Medicine (U.S.)
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