One of the most controversial critics of older medical knowledge was the physician and alchemist Paracelsus (1493-1541), the nom de plume of Philippus Aureolus Theophrastus Bombastus von Hohenheim. He drew great attention for his witty and vitriolic attacks on establishment medicine, and for his novel chemical philosophy of disease and therapeutics.

He traveled extensively and apparently studied the contemporary medical curriculum at several universities, although he declared them to be useless and instead absorbed various therapies and ideas from folk medicine. But in every way, he defied convention. He rejected standard Scholastic theory (Galen’s and Celsus’s theories of humoural balance) and their traditional herbal remedies as well. Worse still, he lectured in the vernacular to ordinary people, while insulting fellow doctors for their ignorance. He not only criticized them — he publicly burned authoritative medical texts of Galen and Avicenna (Ibn Sina). He outraged academics by proudly claiming to derive knowledge from “tramps, butchers, and barbers.” The remedies he proposed drew on miners’ metallurgy and alchemy. His most radical proposal was the use of heavy metals for bringing the body back into harmony, such as mercury for curing syphilis. Although appointed a professor of medicine in Basel in 1526, by 1528 he had aroused so much controversy that he was exiled from the city. Over the next decade,however, his treatise on surgery and his promotion of radically new cures provided him with fame and wealth, and a persistently controversial reputation.

After centuries of reputation as a quack, today he has newfound popularity for his alchemical and alternative medical views.