Aqueous extractions - a general reading

[Hermes777]

A few thoughts on Paracelsus' alchemy: I once tried to link this "herbalist branch" to people before Paracelus, but I was unsuccessful. Paracelsus' thinking certainly did not arise out of nothing, but the approach as such can be described as revolutionary in a certain way. Palacelsus' education was already atypical for his time. Instead of just attending the "first available" university, he embarked on an eight-year journey through Europe and slowly developed his own medical view. He fundamentally rejected the Galenic teachings. However, magic and astronomy also played a major role. Throughout his life, Paracelsus was an outsider in the medical profession. He was despised by many of his colleagues but revered by his patients because of his successes. Experience in professional practice and not theoretical medicine was always the benchmark for him. He developed his recipes, tinctures and treatment methods on this basis. This is also where alchemy comes into play. In his countless writings, Paracelsus built up a cryptic and complex world of ideas in which he defined illnesses as a disorder of the alchemical-chemical processes in the body. According to Paracelsus, these are based on the three basic principles of which humans are also made: Mercurius (mercury), sulphur (sulphur) and sal (salt). And if the basic principles were to become disordered, then diseases would arise. This alchemical principle can in fact be attributed exclusively to Paracelsus and, as far as I know, has no known predecessors. Therefore, one can only speak of proto-Parcelsism to a limited extent.

Thanks for those comments. Indeed, Paracelesus was engaged in his own enterprise. The description "proto-Paracelsean" was given to the Voynich at an early point - Panofsky, I think. His first question was: Where are the gemstones and metals?" He was struck by the fact it is exclusively herbal and noted this was characteristric of the (later) Paracelsean school. I think that is an astute observation and a correct surmise. 

The three principles in Paracelsus, Sal, Mercur and Sulphur, as a set, has always seemed to me a simple extension of tripartite accounts of the human being well-established in Neoplatonism, and Platonic texts, long before Paracelsus. It is standard Platonism: there is nous, and thumos, and the appetitive nature, threefold. I think there is a geneaology of Paracelesus' system. 

But you are right: the Voynich is only proto-Paracelsean in a limited sense. It is a strictly botanical materia medica. But importantly, there are no signs of distillation. The herbal pharmacology in the Voynich is evidently water based. So it is very different to Paracelus who embraced ethanol based tinctures (spagyrics). 

My view, in any case, is that the Voynich stands somewhere in the tradition that gave rise to aspects of German natural medicine, specifically alpine-based, water therapies and herbalism combined. We can situate the Voynich in this way. It is not, for instance, conspicuously related to the more French developments of natural medicine where perfumery (from the East) and aromatherapy have been more pronounced. It is far closer to things we find in Anthroposophical medicine (via Goethe.) today.