<A>
Paracelsus: *
Paracelsus made significant advances in medicine, pharmacy & chemistry. An empiricist he was critical of the received wisdom in medicine although he also had roots in alchemy. He explained the nature of medicine using the idea of the tripartite alternatives, composed of a combustible element (sulphur), a fluid & changeable element (mercury), and a solid, permanent element (salt); each existed in many physical forms. He believed that these 3 contained poisons contributing to all diseases; symptoms depended on which of the 3 caused the ailment.
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medicine.
First to recognize that physicians needed knowledge in the natural sciences, especially chemistry; he pioneered the use of chemicals & minerals, inorganic salts, & metals for medicinal purposes. He was a forerunner of antisepsis having seen terrible wounds as a military doctor in the Venetian wars & abandoned the received wisdom on such injuries, advocating cleanliness & the protection of wounds. He invented clinical diagnosis & the administration of highly specific medicines, uncommon in an age of cure-all remedies. He anticipated the germ theory, proposing that diseases were entities in themselves, not states of being. He investigated toxicology & expounded the concept of dose response in reaction to criticism of his use of inorganic substances in medicine. He encouraged experimental animals to study the beneficial & toxic chemical effects. He believed diseases located in specific organs & there was a specific bodily sites where a chemical would exert its greatest effect. He believed that organs in the body separated pure from impure substances; pure substances were absorbed by the body, the impure were excreted.
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chemistry.
He is credited with coining the terms "chemistry," "gas," and "alcohol" & gave zinc (zincum) it’s modern name, he invented chemical therapy, chemical urinalysis & suggested a biochemical theory of digestion. He also unknowingly observed hydrogen as he noted that in reaction when acids attack metals, gas was a by-product.
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pharmacy.
He theorized materials poisonous in large doses mingt cure in small. He extolled the benefits of opium & reintroduced it to Western Europe; he also praised a pill he called laudanum (probably an opium tincture). He invented opodeldoc liniment, a mixture of soap in alcohol, with added camphor, herbal essences & wormwood; this recipe forms most later versions of liniment. He introduced the black hellebore to Europe & prescribed the correct dosage to alleviate arteriosclerosis. He recommended the use of iron for "poor blood". He studied minerals and the curative powers of alpine mineral springs.
<B>
Robert Boyle:
Although seen as the first modern chemist, he was an alchemist, believed the transmutation of metals was possible, & carried out experiments in the hope of achieving it. However he was far from uncritical & in his first book on the subject, The Sceptical Chymist, published in 1661, he criticised the theories of Paracelsus.
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He made many advances in scientific knowledge. His methodology stood out; it was empirical, observational, reasoned & avoided conjecture or hypothesis. Besides propounding Boyle's law, he also discovered the role of air in propagating sound, investigated the expansion of ice, explored specific gravities, refractive powers, crystals, electricity, colour & hydrostatics. He was important in the understanding of “elements” & endorsed the idea they were the indecomposable constituents of material bodies; he made the distinction between mixtures & compounds & advanced techniques for detecting their ingredients (which he called "analysis"). He supposed elements were ultimately composed of particles of various sorts & sizes, into which, however, they were not to be resolved in any known way.
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<C>
“The elements of Empedocles designate states of bodiliness but the elements of Lavoisier…designate energy-systems accessible to human will, ‘rigid’ and ‘fluid’ becoming mere terms to describe tension-relations between molecules.”
<D>
“What we call Statics, Chemistry and Dynamics…are really the respective physical systems of the Apollonian, Magian and Faustian souls.…”
Spengler is comparing the physics of the 3 Cultures.
<E>
"Corresponding to these sciences, each to each, we have the mathematics of Euclidean geometry, Algebra and Higher Analysis..."
Spengler is comparing the “mathematics” of the 3 Cultures.
<F>
“ Corresponding to these sciences, each to each, we have… the arts of statue, arabesque and fugue.”
Spengler is comparing the “arts”” of the 3 Cultures.
<G>
motion: *
“We may differentiate these three kinds of physics…by their standpoints towards the problem of motion, and call them mechanical orderings of states, secret forces and processes respectively”