This is a chemistry video that teaches about toxicology, a medical technique that Paracelsus discovered and is still being used today (Watch to 45 seconds).
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Paracelsus had several devoted followers in his lifetime, two of which were named, Gerard Dorn (166-1584) and Petrus Severinus (1542-1602). Both created works based on Paracelsus' findings, seeking to continue, publish, and defend his ideas. Severinus also began to tweak Paracelsus' findings so that they would make sense in the context of the time, which interested more people and helped Paracelsus' ideas gain popularity. Even without these two supporters, Paracelsus inspired many people to stand up to the medical ideas of the time, rather than following common belief. He had a “tremendous influence of his philosophical and medical ideas on the two generations of natural philosophers, physicians, and even poets that followed him. To those, Paracelsus was remembered primarily as a medical iconoclast, challenging the authority of Aristotle and Galen, whose teachings dominated the university medical curriculum and were staunchly upheld by the elite colleges of physicians” (Grendler). Foundation on Today’s Technology Many of Paracelsus’ discoveries lay the baseline for medical practices used to this day. An example of this is his experimenting with chemistry, where, “Through alchemy, he experimented with therapeutic applications of metallurgy and chemistry that would later develop into iatrochemistry and eventually into modern chemotherapy” (Luft). Paracelsus' studies on hormesis created the foundation for human consumption of small doses of toxins nowadays. One element, Selenium, is toxic to humans when taken in large quantities, however it is now sold as a vitamin supplement and is accredited with reducing the risk of cancer. Paracelsus left behind a legacy of discovering many new methods of healing that hadn't been tried before, many of which were a step in the direction of modern medicine. He generally experimented with things that seemed dangerous or insane at the time, which led him to discover new healing methods that nobody even dreamt about. He is considered to be the “father of modern chemistry” (Grell, 56). Paracelsus's ideas are featured in the Dictionary of Scientific Biography (1974) and the Oxford Encyclopedia of the Reformation (1996). It was said that, “even for a man born at the turn of the fifteenth century, when the world and the way we look at it had yet to be split into totally separate disciplines, this is a considerable achievement” (Grell, 1). |