Preface

The physician must follow experience.

"You shall eat of the labor of your hands, and it shall be well with you" original Latin: "manuum tuarum manducabis, & bene tibi erit." A reference to Psalm 128:2, emphasizing that success comes from one's own direct effort and experience.. Now, because seeing comes before hearsay, and because that which the sight grasps either gladdens or terrifies the heart, it should cause me no trouble, nor should it be held against me, even if I travel and associate with people whom some despise out of ignorance. For to explore what lies and remains hidden in the limbus original: "limbo." In Paracelsus’s philosophy, the "Limbus" is the primordial "great mystery" or reservoir of matter from which God created all things., and to rightly understand what a original Latin: "uerus medicus." true physician created by God can achieve—so that benefit rather than harm follows—is a task that no idler can endure. So, let whoever wishes sit upon their cushion; I, however, rejoice in my traveling and in that which God and time have granted me to see and to fathom.

Why he wrote this little book.

For the sake of the good-hearted who intend to learn, I have also wished to write this little book, so that they might understand the foundation of my medical science. I also hope that the Cacomedicus A term coined from Greek and Latin meaning "bad physician." Paracelsus used it to describe his academic rivals whom he considered incompetent. might leave off his blacksmith-work original: "schmidtwerck." A metaphor for crude, forceful, or unrefined medical practices that treat the human body as if it were inanimate metal., and that I might provide some answer regarding my foundations to those same critics. I hope, however, it shall also be considered as a work of fables—