Paracelsus: Medicine, Magic and Mission at the End of Time. By Charles Webster. New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 2008. xiv + 326 pp. $40.00 cloth.

摘要

Though Theophrastus Bombastus von Hohenheim, known as Paracelsus, hasnbeen most extensively studied with regard to his place in the history ofnmedicine, recent scholarship has drawn attention to the religious dimensionnof his reforming efforts. This book continues that endeavor by offering anbroader look at Paracelsus’s aspirations and his place within the social andnintellectual environment of sixteenth-century Germany. Charles Websternshows how this controversial physician developed an audacious program ofn“root and branch reform” (1). His interest in medicine was only part of anlarger vision of a new world order that included extensive changes in bothnchurch and society. Viewing Paracelsus as a religious controversialist as wellnas a medical reformer, Webster notes in particular how his sense of living atna critical moment, at the end of time, energized his pugnacious campaign fornthe rejection of many traditional beliefs and practices.