ALCHEMY: FIRST LINE OF DEFENCE FOR MEDICAL SCIENCES
ALCHEMY: FIRST LINE OF DEFENCE FOR MEDICAL SCIENCES

Summary/Abstract: Physicians have represented along centuries real promoters of knowledge, either we speak about science, literature, theology or about pseudo-sciences such as astrology, metaphysics, alchemy etc. Through small steps they have brought reform to society especially in the dark ages of mankind such as the Middle Ages. Villa Nova represented in the history of medicine the transition from Aristotelian and Galenic studies to a superior, more scientific form, focused on empiricism. The polymath studied not only the Greek and Latin sources, but also the Arabic ones, translating from various medical treatises circulating at that time. It is supposed that in his vast activity the Catalonian is the author or at least the translator and publisher of over seventy medical treaties. The novelty that he brought is still the existence of a fifth element: the spontaneous, animal-like impulses that, according to the physician, are located in the heart and pulsating throughout the body. This animal spirit is responsible for human sins and diseases, as well as the principle that maintains life and makes the junction between the psychic and the material part of the body. The scientific merit of the Spanish physician's conception is to have guessed what, over centuries in the modern world, we call genetic factors in the etiology of diseases. The polymath believed that people were born with a predisposition to morbidity or another that they can still control by a proper life style, good nutrition and hygiene.

• Details
• Contents