The Alchemical Patronage of Sir William Cecil, Lord Burghley

practitioner and in introducing a convincing ritual context for the treatment
of disease. 8
As the medical philosophy of the German physician Phillip von Hohenheim—
known as Paracelsus—spread throughout Europe in the later sixteenth century, alchemical
medicine evolved into a coherent alternative to the Galenic tradition. Paracelsus taught a
consistent medical philosophy that justified the use of alchemical medicines. Unlike the
Galenists, who saw disease as an imbalance of the humours, Paracelsus conceived illness as
a localised problem in one of the body‘s alchemical processes. 9 According to Paracelsus
these problems caused imbalances in the body‘s three elements: the alchemical tria prima of
salt, sulphur, and mercury. 10 Paracelsian physicians saw the body as a microcosm of the
wider world. Just as metals grew and matured in the earth through an alchemical union, so
a human organ ―acted as an alchemist separating pure from impure‖. 11 Just as the
alchemist used his art to hasten the earth‘s natural process, so physicians could heal
diseased organs with metallic and mineral compounds, often containing poisonous levels of
mercury, arsenic, or lead. 12
Paracelsus connected his philosophy with the reformist religions of Germany, in
opposition to Galen‘s Roman paganism. 13 While this helped to spread Paracelsian
medicine throughout the Protestant regions of northern Europe, there is a degree of
historical debate as to its importance in sixteenth century England. Studies of vernacular
medical literature have tended to argue that until the Interregnum period Paracelsianism
was less influential in England than the rest of Europe. 14 More recent approaches,
focussing on the presence of Paracelsian texts in the libraries of prominent philosophers
8 Ibid. p. 314-15.
9 Charles Webster, Paracelsus: Medicine, Magic and Mission at the End of Time, New Haven, 2008, pp. 134-36.
10 Ibid.
11 Alan Debus, Chemistry and Medical Debate: Van Helmont to Boerhaave, Canton, 2001, p. 13.
12 Webster, Paracelsus, pp. 138-40.
13 Webster, ‗Alchemical and Paracelsian Medicine‘, p. 316.
14 P. H. Kocher, ‗Paracelsian Medicine in England: The First Thirty Years (ca. 1570–1600)‘, Journal of the
History of Medicine, Vol. 11, 1947, pp. 451-80.
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