The devil's doctor : Paracelsus and the world of Renaissance magic and science / Philip Ball.
| Author/creator |
Ball, Philip, 1962- |
| Format | Book and Print |
| Edition | 1st American ed. |
| Publication Info | New York : Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2006. |
| Description | viii, 436 pages : illustrations, maps ; 24 cm |
| Supplemental Content | Sample text |
| Supplemental Content | Table of contents |
| Supplemental Content | Contributor biographical information |
| Supplemental Content | Publisher description |
| Subject(s) |
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| Contents | Acknowledgments -- Introduction : Fool's quest : a Faustina legacy -- ch. 1. Black madonna : a country doctor -- ch. 2. The metal makers : learning the arts -- ch. 3. The universal scholar : a Renaissance education -- ch. 4. The staff and the snake : healing in the early renaissance -- ch. 5. Intellectual vagabonds : walking the pages of the book of nature -- ch. 6. A new religion : the trials of reformation -- ch. 7. Revolution under the sign of the shoe : sedition in Salzburg -- ch. 8. Transmutation at Ingolstadt : making gold -- ch. 9. Elixir and quintessence : a chemical medicine -- ch. 10. Bitter medicine : Paracelsus among the humanists -- ch. 11. The battle of Basle : how Paracelsus left town -- ch. 12. Against the grain : quicksilver and wood -- ch. 13. The alchemist inside : an hermetic biology -- ch. 14. Beyond wonders : the matrix of the world -- ch. 15. Star and ascendant : a science of prophesy -- ch. 16. Demons of the mind : invisible diseases -- ch. 17. The little man : animating the earth -- ch. 18. The white horse : death in Salzburg -- ch. 19. Work with fire : the chemical legacy of Paracelsus -- ch. 20. Philosopher's gold : the last of the chemical magicians -- Notes -- Bibliography -- Index. |
| Review | "Philip Theophrastus Aureolus Bombastus von Hohenheim - known to later ages as Paracelsus - stands on the borderline between medieval and modern; a name that is familiar but a man who has been hard to perceive or understand." "But who was Paracelsus and what did he really believe and practice? He has been seen both as a charlatan and as a founder of modern science, but Philip Ball's book reveals a more complex man - who used his eyes and ears to learn from nature how to heal, and who wrote influential books on medicine, surgery, alchemy and theology while living a drunken, combative, vagabond life. Above all Ball reveals a man who was a product of his time - an age of great change in which Christendom was divided, the classics were rediscovered and the earth was displaced from the centre of the cosmos - and whose bringing together of the seemingly diverse disciplines of alchemy and biology signalled the beginning of the age of rationalism."--Jacket |
| Bibliography note | Includes bibliographical references (pages 411-417) and index. |
| Acquisitions source | Laupus- John Lehman, donor. |
| LCCN | 2005019848 |
| ISBN | 0374229791 |
| ISBN | 9780374229795 |
| Standard identifier# | 9780374229795 |
Available Items
| Library | Location | Call Number | Status | Item Actions | |
| Laupus | Books - Stacks | WZ 100 P221B 2006 | ✔ Available | Place Hold |