Original scientific paper
Ivan Leopold Payer and the Reception of Paracelsus'Views in Croatia
Snježana Paušek-Baždar
; Zavod za povijest i filozofiju znanosti HAZU, Zagreb, Hrvatska
Abstract
Therefore each contribution realized on Croatian soil at the time is precious. The research into the work of the Varaždin town doctor Ivan Leopold Payer entitled Fundamentum naturae medicatricis adaequatum… (Adequate Basis of Nature the Healer…), written in Varaždin and published in Graz, Austria, in 1710, shows that he had managed to accept the contemporary views of the Western European science and transfer them to Varaždin, to Croatia, and to the Austrian Empire. The paper shows that he had taken over the doctrine of Paracelsus’ critic and follower, the Flemish natural scientist Johannes (Joan) Baptiste van Helmont, without any elements of mysticism and occultism. This doctrine was presented in the work Ortus medicinae (The Rising of Medicine) from 1648 which was, among other languages, translated into German (1707) and which Payer was most likely to have used. Van Helmont’s doctrine refers to the critique of the four elements (earth, water, air, and fire) and the introduction of water as the only element of all the things in the world, which was of historical importance for the development of iatrochemistry. Water is the true element, for God had scattered the seeds (semina) of all the organic and anorganic substances into it, and they dwell in it. At the same time Payer ignored van Helmont’s mystic interpretation of the dualistic, bodily-spiritual nature of the seeds. Unlike van Helmont, Payer presented his own critique of the doctrine concerning atoms, advocated by several iatrochemists, and which van Helmont did not deal with. The paper also points out that it was the natural-philosophical views regarding water as an element that motivated Payer to perform the first chemical analysis of a Croatian mineral water (1709).
Keywords
Natural philosophy; history of science; Paracelsus; Johannes (Joan) Baptiste van Helmont; Ivan Leopold Payer; elements; water; iatrochemistry
Hrčak ID:
66816
URI
Publication date:
7.12.2009.
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