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Libra Esoterica

Chapter Jan Baptist Van Helmont and the Medical-Alchemical Perspectives of Poison

by Delia Georgiana Hedesan

  • First published:
  • 21st century
  • Language: English
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Description

Description from Directory of Open Access Books (opens in a new tab)

This chapter discusses Jan Baptist Van Helmont’s (1579-1644) views on poison in light of his medical alchemy. First, it argues that his approach was fundamentally influenced by the theories of ‘universal poison’ and ‘potent poison’ developed by Theophrastus von Hohenheim, called Paracelsus (1493-1541). Paracelsus’s ideas supported Van Helmont’s own views that medical alchemy was the only key to curing all diseases and poisons. At the same time, Van Helmont sought to set these concepts more clearly in a Christian framework, and also used them to launch a scathing attack on Galenic medicine and practices. Moreover, Van Helmont used poison theory to advance his belief in the existence of a universal solvent Alkahest that could extract medical essences out of any being. The Alkahest could then be used to construct an all-powerful universal medicine that proved God’s special providence to mankind.

Provenance

Why this book is in the catalog

Included because retained bibliographic metadata links this work to Alchemy and Hermeticism, Occultism and esotericism, and Ritual magic and grimoires.

  • Occultism and esotericism

    Controlled discovery queries from doab matched “occultism”. Retained metadata contains “occult” in the subject metadata.

    • “occultism”· via Directory of Open Access Books
    • “occult”· in subject
  • Ritual magic and grimoires

    Retained metadata contains “Magic” in the subject metadata.

    • “Magic”· in subject
  • Alchemy and Hermeticism

    Controlled discovery queries from doab matched “alchemy”. Retained metadata contains “Alchemy” in the description, “Alchemy” in the subject metadata, and “hermetic” in the subject metadata.

    • “alchemy”· via Directory of Open Access Books
    • “Alchemy”· in description
    • “Alchemy”· in subject
    • “hermetic”· in subject

Membership records how this book met the catalog’s discovery criteria — relevance to a tradition, not a judgment of the book’s claims.

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Editions

One edition cataloged here.

Directory of Open Access Books edition

2017—English—Open access

Subjects

10 subject headings

Identifiers & provenance

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Identifiers

DOAB
  • 20.500.12854/70514

Cataloged from

Catalog id
doab:20.500.12854/70514
Edition coverage
Multi source partial
Retrieved