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ABSTRACT
The study offers an analysis of the treatise Von der Pestilentz an die Statt Stertzingen (first edition 1576, ed. Michael Toxites) in the context of Paracelsus’s likely sojourn in Tyrol in 1533/1534. The article discusses Paracelsus's approach to treating plague, emphasizing practical remedies over theoretical considerations. Paracelsus offers various therapeutic interventions, including bloodletting and herbal remedies. The treatise also delves into astrological considerations, offering recommendations based on sex, age, and other factors. Despite its departure from Paracelsus’s more theoretical plague works, such as Zwey Bücher von der Pestilentz vnnd jhren Zufellen and De Peste Libri tres, the Sterzing treatise is deemed authentic, reflecting a practical and utilitarian approach likely driven by Paracelsus’s attempt to secure patronage. The article underscores the importance of considering audience and genre when interpreting Paracelsus's writings, suggesting that the Sterzing treatise serves as a valuable biographical source while offering insights into his evolving medical theories.
Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).
Notes
1 For Paracelsus’s biography, see Udo Benzenhöfer, Paracelsus (Reinbek bei Hamburg: Rowohlt, 1997); Andrew Weeks, Paracelsus: Speculative Theory and the Crisis of the Early Reformation (Albany: SUNY Press, 1997); Charles Webster, Paracelsus. Medicine, Magic and Mission at the End of Time (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2008); Bruce T. Moran, Paracelsus: An Alchemical Life (London: Reaktion Books, 2019). (Walter Pagel’s Paracelsus: An Introduction to Philosophical Medicine in the Era of the Renaissance (Basel: Karger, 1958) is dated and idiosyncratic but still remains useful.) Johannes Huser edited a superlative edition of Hohenheim's works in the late sixteenth century that has not yet been surpassed by modern editions. See Paracelsus, Bücher und Schriften, Johannes Huser, ed., 10 vols. (Basel, 1589–1590; hereafter cited as: Huser vol 3, etc.). Paracelsus’s natural philosophical and/medical works are also available in Paracelsus, Sämtliche Werke, 1. Abt., ed. Karl Sudhoff, 14 vols. (Munich, 1922-1933; hereafter cited as: Sudhoff, vol. 9, etc.). Both editions are available in the fully searchable “Theo–the Paracelsus database” at the University of Zurich (https://www.paracelsus-project.org/). In this paper, I will cite both the Huser and Sudhoff editions. For a recent bibliographical overview, see Dane Daniel and Charles Gunnoe “Paracelsus,” in Oxford Bibliographies in Renaissance and Reformation, ed. Margaret King (New York: Oxford University Press, 2023) https://www.oxfordbibliographies.com/view/document/obo-9780195399301/obo-9780195399301-0507.xml
2 See Didier Kahn and Hiro Hirai, eds., Pseudo-Paracelsus: Forgery and Early Modern Alchemy, Medicine and Natural Philosophy (Leiden: Brill, 2022). While the entire volume is valuable, especially see the catalog of texts prepared by Julian Paulus: “A Catalogue Raisonné of Pseudo-Paracelsian Writings: Texts Attributed to Paracelsus and Paracelsian Writings of Doubtful Authenticity,” in Pseudo-Paracelsus, 161–486.
3 Pagel, Paracelsus, 137–40. Pagel argued that Paracelsus offered an ontological theory of disease, though such a perspective is difficult to discern in the plague treatises. To the degree such a concept is present in early modern Paracelsianism, it likely owes as much to later Paracelsians (whom Pagel also favors) such as Joan Baptista van Helmont.
4 See F. R. Jevons, “Paracelsus’s Two-Way Astrology,” The British Journal for the History of Science 2 (1964), 139–155; Didier Kahn, “Paracelsus’ Ideas on the Heavens, Stars and Comets,” in Miguel Angel Granada, et al. eds., Unifying Heaven and Earth: Essays in the history of Early Modern Cosmology (Barcelona: Edicions de la Universitat de Barcelona, 2016), 59–116; Georgiana D. Hedesan, “Alchemy, potency, imagination: Paracelsus’s theories of poison” in "It All Depends on the Dose”: Poisons and Medicines in European History, ed. Ole Peter Grell, Andrew Cunningham, and Jon Arrizabalaga (Abingdon Oxon: Routledge, 2018), 81–102. See also Gunnoe and Kahn titles in note 5.
5 The literature on Paracelsus and the plague was previously sparse but is now growing. See most recently the complementary works by Didier Kahn, "De Pestilitate and Paracelsian Cosmology," Daphnis 48, 1–2 (2020): 65–86 and Charles D. Gunnoe, Jr., "Paracelsus, the Plague, and De Pestilitate," Early Science and Medicine 24, 5–6 (2020): 504–526. The most comprehensive review of Paracelsus’s plague vocabulary is Rosemarie Dilg-Frank, “Zu Begriff und Bedeutung von ‘pestis/pestilentia’ und ihrer Verwendung bei Paracelsus,” in Sepp Domandl, ed., Paracelsus in der Tradition (Vienna, 1980), 48–66. See Jürgen Strein and Joachim Telle, “Deutsche Pseudoparacelsica über die Pest: Ein „Begriff zur Pestdiagnose (1553) und die „Tabula de pestilitate" von Bartholomäus Scultetus (1578),” in Dominik Groß and Monika Reininger, eds., Medizin in Geschichte, Philologie und Ethnologie: Festschrift für Gundolf Keil (Würzburg: Königshausen & Neumann, 2003), 349–370; Neil McDowell, “The Sixteenth-Century German Plague Text and Its Role in Early Modern Medical Discourse,” Ph.D. Dissertation (University of Pennsylvania, 1998); Erik Heinrichs, Plague, Print, and the Reformation: The German Reform of Healing, 1473–1573 (London: Routledge, 2018). More recently Fred Kim has emerged as a leading scholar of early modern plague theory with his dissertation “Avoiding Plague: Medical Debates on Contagion in Early Modern Europe” (Columbia University 2019). Weeks offers some commentary on the Sterzing treatise, but his references are to the Nördlingen treatise (in the Sudhoff edition). See Weeks, Paracelsus, 49–75, especially pp. 69–71. (Note: Paracelsus does not refer to the basilisk in the Sterzing treatise.)
6 Franz Mauelshagen, "Pestepidemien im Europa der Frühen Neuzeit (1500–1800)," in Pest: Die Geschichte eines Menschheitstraumas, ed. Mischa Meier (Stuttgart: Klett-Cotta, 2005), 237–265. See also the more comprehensive study of Joël Coste, Représentations et comportements en temps d'épidémie dans la littérature imprimée de peste (1490-1725): Contribution à l'histoire culturelle de la peste en France à l'époque moderne (Paris : Honoré Champion, 2007).
7 Gustav K. Wiencke, ed. Luther's Works, Vol. 43: Devotional Writings II (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1968), 113–138.
8 Charles D. Gunnoe, “Gessner’s Plague: The Bubonic Plague Epidemic of 1562–1566,” in Conrad Gessner (1516–1565): Die Renaissance der Wissenschaften/The Renaissance of Learning, ed. Urs Leu and Peter Opitz (Munich: De Gruyter Oldenbourg, 2019), 195–309.
9 See Edward A. Eckert, The Structure of Plagues and Pestilences in Early Modern Europe Central Europe, 1560–1640 (Basel: Karger, 1996).
10 Huser, vol. 3: fol. Aaa iiiv.
11 Huser, vol. 3, 24–107; Sudhoff, vol. 9, 454–562. De Pestilitate is analyzed in detail in Gunnoe, "Paracelsus, the Plague, and De Pestilitate," 504–526 and Kahn, "De Pestilitate and Paracelsian Cosmology," 65–86.
12 Huser, vol. 3, 109–123; Sudhoff, vol. 9, 454–562.
13 Huser, vol. 3, 124–149; Sudhoff, vol. 8, 371–395.
14 Huser, vol. 3, 150–206; Sudhoff, vol. 9, 565–638 (including the fragments).
15 See Gunnoe, "Paracelsus, the Plague, and De Pestilitate,” 94–98. Dilg-Frank also gives a helpful overview of the plague treatises. Dilg-Frank, “Zu Begriff und Bedeutung von ‘pestis/pestilentia’ und ihrer Verwendung bei Paracelsus,” 54–55.
16 Also known as Fünf Bücher De causis morborum invisibilium, Huser, vol. 1, 238–327; Sudhoff, vol. 9, 249–350. Translated in Andrew Weeks, ed. Paracelsus (Theophrastus Bombastus von Hohenheim, 1493–1541): Essential Theoretical Writings (Leiden: Brill, 2008), 720–937. Not surprisingly, there are over 300 references to “Pestilentz” in the Huser edition alone. The references are clustered in the plague texts but also common in medical works such as the Grosse Wundarzney and Volumen Medicinae Paramirum, speculative works such as Astronomia Magna oder Philosophia Sagax, and popular astrological tracts.
17 See above, n. 13. See Weeks on Paracelsus’s effort to connect plague to his entien theory. Weeks, Paracelsus, 49-75.
18 See above, n. 14. For an introduction to Paracelsus’s plague theory, see also Kahn, "De Pestilitate and Paracelsian Cosmology," 76–78; Gunnoe, "Paracelsus, the Plague, and De Pestilitate," 97–98.
19 H.-Emile Rébouis, ed. “Consultation de la faculté de médecine de Paris (Ms. 11,227, Fonds latin, Biblioth. Nat.)” in Étude historique et critique sur la peste (Paris: Alphonse Picard, Croville-Morant et Foucart, 1888), 70–145. Translated in Rosemary Horrox, The Black Death (Manchester University Press, 1994), 158–163. That is not to assert, however, that the initial wave of interpretations of the epidemic were monolithic. See especially Danielle Jacquart, "La perception par les contemporains de la peste de 1348." Publications de l'Académie des Inscriptions et Belles-Lettres 17 (2006): 237–247.
20 Emphasis added. Zwey Bücher von der Pestilentz und jhren zufällen, Huser, vol. 3, 134; Sudhoff, vol. 9, 380.
21 Huser, vol. 3, 135; Sudhoff, vol. 9, 381.
22 The themes of God’s judgment and mercy are discussed at length in De peste libri tres. Huser, vol. 3, 183–184; Sudhoff, vol. 9, 601–602.
23 Walter Schneider, "Die Hospitäler im Raum Alt-Tirol: Probleme einer Pass- und Übergangsregion," In Funktions- und Strukturwandel spätmittelalterlicher Hospitäler im europäischen Vergleich. Geschichtliche Landeskunde Band 56, ed. Michael Matheus (Stuttgart: Steiner, 2005), 59–99.
24 Werner O. Packull, "The Beginning of Anabaptism in Southern Tyrol," The Sixteenth Century Journal 22 (1991): 717–26, here pp. 718–719.
25 Josef Macek, Der Tiroler Bauernkrieg und Michael Gaismair (Berlin: Deutscher Verlag der Wissenschaften, 1965); Walter Klaassen, Michael Gaismair: Revolutionary and Reformer (Leiden: Brill, 1978).
26 C. Schmidt, Michael Schütz genannt Toxites, Leben eines Humanisten und Arztes (Strasbourg, 1888). The most thorough coverage of Toxites’s career can be garnered from Wilhelm Kühlmann and Joachim Telle, Corpus Paracelsisticum: Dokumente frühneuzeitlicher Naturphilosophie in Deutschland. Der Frühparacelsismus (Tübingen: Niemeyer, 2001), vol. 2, pp. 41–528.
27 Mark Häberlein, The Fuggers of Augsburg: Pursuing Wealth and Honor in Renaissance Germany, (Charlottesville: University of Virginia Press, 2012), 114.
28 Jean-Noël Biraben, Les Hommes et la peste en France et dans les pays européens et méditerranéens (Paris: Mouton, 1975–1976), vol. 1, 125.
29 Nükhet Varlik, Plague and Empire in the Early Modern Mediterranean World: The Ottoman Experience (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2015), 160–184.
30 The most comprehensive survey of the plague epidemics in early modern Central Europe remains Edward A. Eckert, The Structure of Plagues and Pestilences in Early Modern Europe Central Europe, 1560–1640. As the title suggests, it only begins in earnest in the 1560s. The Deutsches Städtebuch series faithfully collects some of the municipal records of plague epidemics in Germany in this era, from which one can gain a sense of the relative distribution and intensity of such outbreaks. Keyser Erich and Heinz Stoob, eds. Deutsches Städtebuch: Handbuch Städtischer Geschichte (1939–1974). Volumes 4 (Baden-Wurttemberg) and 5 (Bavaria) were particularly useful for this study. Special thanks to Mac Anderson for compiling a database of 16th and 17th century plague outbreaks.
31 Charlotte Buhl, "Die Pestepidemien des ausgehenden Mittelalters und der frühen Neuzeit in Nürnberg (1483–1533), in Nürnberg und Bern: Zwei Reichsstädte und ihre Landgebiete, ed. Rudolf Endres (Erlangen: Univ.Bibliothek, 1990), 121–168, here 125. See also Carolin Porzelt, Die Pest in Nürnberg: Leben und Herrschen in Pestzeiten in der Reichsstadt Nürnberg (1562–1713) (St. Ottilien: EOS Verlag, 2000).
32 Edwin Rosner, “Hohenheims Weg in den Jahren 1532–1534: Eine Hypothesenüberprüfung," in Salzburger Beiträge zur Paracelsusforschung 28 (Vienna: Verband der wissenschaftlichen Gesellschaften Österreichs, 1995), 63–68.
33 Ole Peter Grell and Andrew Cunningham, The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse: Religion War Famine and Death in Reformation Europe (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2000), 276–279; Paul Slack, The Impact of the Plague in Tudor and Stuart England (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1985), 61.
34 Edwin Rosner, “Hohenheims Weg in den Jahren 1532–1534, 68. See also K. Schadelbauer, "Zum Aufenthalt des Paracelsus in Innsbruck und Sterzing 1534," Veröffentlichungen der Internationalen Gesellschaft für Geschichte der Pharmazie 24 (1964): 103–7.
35 Eduard Schubert and Karl Sudhoff, Paracelsus-Forschungen (Frankfurt: Reitz & Koehler, 1889), vol. 2, 166.
36 Regarding the plague literature produced in Tyrol in the wake of the 1534 plague, see Heinz Flamm, "‘Infektions-Ordnungen für die ‘oberösterreichischen’ Länder: Tirol mit den zugetanenen und inkorporierten Herrschaften vor dem Arl und Fern und die Vorlande," in Die ersten Infektions- oder Pest-Ordnungen in den österreichischen Erblanden, im Fürstlichen Erzstift Salzburg und im Innviertel im 16. Jahrhundert (Vienna: Verlag der Österreichischen Akademie der Wissenschaften, 2008), 25–47.
37 The list is simplified and paraphrased from Karl Schadelbauer, “Die Sterzinger Pestordnung vom Jahre 1534,” Archiv für Geschichte der Medizin 18, H. 2 (1926): 192–196, here 193–194. For a comparative view of plague ordinances, see Achille Chéreau, Les Ordonnances faictes et publiées à son de trompe par les carrefours de ceste ville de Paris pour éviter le dangier de peste 1531 (Paris: L. Willem, 1873). See also Coste, Représentations et comportements en temps d'épidémie.
38 For the chronology of Paracelsus’s biography in general, see Benzenhöfer, Paracelsus (pp. 138–139), though he does not offer much clarification regarding the Tyrolean episode (here see p. 93). Pirmin Meier, Paracelsus Arzt Und Prophet (Zürich: Union Verlag, 2013), has offered the most coverage of Paracelsus’s St Gallen connections. Karl Pisa, Paracelsus in Österreich: eine Spurensuche (St. Polten: Niederösterreichisches Pressehaus, 1991) has a chapter (7) on the Tyrolean stay, but it sheds little light on Paracelsus’s time in Sterzing and Merano. Schubert and Sudhoff, Paracelsus-Forschungen, vol. 2, 159–170 and Rosner, “Hohenheims Weg in den Jahren 1532–1534,” offer the most detailed analyses. See also Karl Sudhoff, Paracelsus: Ein deutsches Lebensbild aus den Tagen der Renaissance (Leipzig: Bibliographisches Institut, 1936), 130–132.
39 The paraphrased translation is from Webster, Paracelsus, 255; Huser, vol. 3, 109–111; Sudhoff, vol. 9, 561–562; Schubert and Sudhoff give the “Hundsketten” a more metaphorical explanation as perhaps referring to Aesop’s fable of “The Dog and the Wolf,” and suggest that his lamentations may more obliquely refer to the religious turmoil of Switzerland. Schubert and Sudhoff, Paracelsus-Forschungen, vol. 2, p. 162.
40 Rosner, “Hohenheims Weg in den Jahren 1532–1534,” 68.
41 Huser, vol. 3, 110; “Mein Armut / vnd mein Frömbkeit. Die Armut ward mir außgeblasen durch jhren Burgermeister / den etwann zu Jnspruck die Doctores haben gesehen / in seidenen Kleidern an den Fürsten höfen / nit in zerrissen Lumpen an der Sonnen bratten: Jetzt wardt der Sententz gefelt / das ich kein Doctor were.”
42 Schadelbauer, “Die Sterzinger Pestordnung vom Jahre 1534,” 193: “Über den Aufenthalt des Paracelsus in Sterzing konnte bisher im Stadtarchive nicht die geringste Angabe gefunden werden; auch der bekannte Tiroler Historiker Konrad Fischknaler der das ganze Archiv geordnet hat, suchte vergebens danach.” Similarly, while Paracelsus names two individuals who befriended him in Sterzing, Marx Porshinger and a certain Kerner, neither of these individuals is especially well documented in the Sterzing records. Schadelbauer, "Zum Aufenthalt des Paracelsus in Innsbruck und Sterzing 1534," 106.
43 Huser, vol. 3, 123; Sudhoff, vol. 9, 560.
44 Rosner, “Hohenheims Weg in den Jahren 1532–1534,” 66–68; Schadelbauer, "Zum Aufenthalt des Paracelsus in Innsbruck und Sterzing 1534," 103–107
45 Huser vol. 3, 109–111; Sudhoff vol. 9, 561–562; See Rosner, “Hohenheims Weg in den Jahren 1532–1534,” 66–68.
46 Paracelsus, Das erste Buch der Grossen Wundarznei, in Chirurgische Bücher vnd Schrifften, ed. Johannes Huser (Strasbourg: Zetzner, 1605), fol. 54b. Most of the possible identification of the mountains and glaciers (in brackets) are from Schubert and Sudhoff, Paracelsus-Forschungen, vol. 2, p. 164–165. See also Karl Bittel, Paracelsus: Leben und Lebensweisheit in Selbstzeugnissen (Leipzig: P. Reclam, 1944), 86–88.
47 The dating of Von der Bergsucht is not firm, but Sudhoff favored the theory that Paracelsus had brought his thinking on mining diseases to a mature formulation during the Tyrol sojourn and completed the treatise by 1534 (Sudhoff, vol. 9, 25–26). See Edwin Rosner, “Hohenheims Bergsuchtmonographie,” Medizinhistorisches Journal 16 (1981): 20–52; Irmgard Müller, ed., Paracelsus: Von der Bergsucht und anderen Bergkrankheiten (De morbis fossorum metallicorum) (Berlin & Heidelberg: Springer Spektrum, 2013).
48 Paracelsus, De Peste … an die Statt Stertzingen geschriben, ed. Michael Toxites (Strasbourg: Nikolaus Wiriot, 1576). Sudhoff, Bibliographia Paracelsica, p. 294 (no. 171); VD16 P 526.
49 See Toxites’s dedication “Dem hochwürdigen Fürsten vnd Herrn/ Herrn Marquarden Bischouen zu Speir … ,” in Paracelsus, De Peste … an die Statt Stertzingen,” Aiir-[Aiiiiv]. Toxites’s letter was edited with commentary by Wilhelm Kühlmann and Joachim Telle, “Dedikation an Bischof Marquard von Hattstein und weitere Angehörige des Speyerer Reichskammergerichts (Hagenau, 1. Juni 1576),” in Corpus Paracelsisticum, vol. 2, (no. 63), pp. 429-435.
50 Sudhoff, Bibliographia Paracelsica, 294 (no. 171): “Die Vermuthung liegt nahe, dass Toxites als geborener Sterzinger das an den Rath des Städtleins gesendete Original einsehen konnte, er sagt aber kein Wort davon.” Kühlmann and Telle countered, saying that Sudhoff’s suggestion “blieb ebenso unbestätigt wie die Behauptung … der vorliegende Druck [i.e., the Sterzing treatise] bilde eine Reaktion des Toxites auf die Bodensteinsche Ausgabe der Pestparacelsica-Redaktion des Bartholomäus Scultetus” [i,e., Sudhoff, Bibliographia Paracelsica, no.193]. Corpus Paracelsisticum, vol. 2 (no. 63), p. 432. Sudhoff also discusses the publication in the introduction of his Paracelsus edition (Sudhoff vol. 9, 26–28).
51 Adam von Bodenstein had first published the Nördlingen treatise and Balthasar Flöter the first edition of De peste libri tres. Bodenstein had brought out a combined edition of both texts in 1575.
52 Corpus Paracelsisticum, vol. 2, (no. 63), p. 430.
53 Corpus Paracelsisticum, vol. 2, (no. 63), p. 431.
54 Corpus Paracelsisticum, vol. 2, (no. 63), p. 431.
55 Sudhoff, Bibliographia Paracelsica, p. 295 (no. 171): “Vorliegender Druck ist von Huser benutzt, die Abweichungen sind ganz gering. Immerhin mag Huser auch Handschriftliches benutzt haben; die Bemerkung ‘ex impresso exemplari’ setzt er nur dann, wenn der Druck seine einzige Quelle war.”
56 Huser, vol. 3, 109–111; Sudhoff, vol. 9, 561–562; Toxites, Aivr–Aviv.
57 Huser, vol. 3, 111–112; Sudhoff, vol. 9, 547–548.
58 Huser, vol. 3, 111–112; Sudhoff, vol. 9, 547–548.
59 Huser, vol. 3, 113; Sudhoff, vol. 9, 548.
60 Since Paracelsus was a critic of Galenism and humoral pathology in general, he is sometimes assumed to have rejected bloodletting. While Paracelsus was not an eager proponent of bloodletting, or many humoral therapies, he authored one treatise on phlebotomy, in which he more critiques abuses rather than abandons the practice wholesale. As this bloodletting text likely stemmed from his Basel period, the positive reference to phlebotomy is another potential clue regarding a possible early origin of the Sterzing treatise. See De Modo Phlebotomandi, das ist Vnterricht vom Aderlassen, Huser 5A, 45–98; Sudhoff 4, 369–434 (dubbed “Vom Aderlaß, Purgiren und Schröpfen” in Sudhoff). See also Udo Benzenhöfer, Studien zum Frühwerk des Paracelsus im Bereich Medizin und Naturkunde (Münster: Klemm & Oelschläger, 2005), 180–182.
61 Huser, vol. 3, 113; Sudhoff, vol. 9, 549.
62 Huser, vol. 3, 113; Sudhoff, vol. 9, 549.
63 Huser, vol. 3, 113–114; Sudhoff, vol. 9, 549–550.
64 Gunnoe, “Gessner’s Plague,” 307: Regarding “‘die Brüne,’ which refers to irritation, sores, and dryness of the throat, tongue, and mouth, commonly called quinsy in English.”
65 Huser, vol. 3, 115; Sudhoff, vol. 9, 551.
66 Opopanax is a common gum resin regarded as something of a panacea in early modern materia medica from the Opopanax genus. Paracelsus refers to it frequently in his surgical writings. Royle J. Forbes and Joseph Carson. Materia Medica and Therapeutics (Philadelphia: Lea and Blanchard, 1847), 405.
67 Huser, vol. 3, 115; Sudhoff, vol. 9, 552. As Erik Heinrichs has noted, a few physicians were offering toad cures in the 1530s. See E. Heinrichs, “The Live Chicken Treatment for Buboes: Trying a Plague Cure in Medieval and Early Modern Europe.” Bulletin of the History of Medicine 91 (2017): 210–32, here 223–224.
68 On theriac, see Christiane Nockels Fabbri, “Treating Medieval Plague: The Wonderful Virtues of Theriac,” Early Science and Medicine 12 (2007): 247–83.
69 Huser, vol. 3, 117–118; Sudhoff, vol. 9, 554.
70 Huser, vol. 3, 118; Sudhoff, vol. 9, 554.
71 Huser, vol. 3, 118; Sudhoff, vol. 9, 554.
72 “Weyrach.”
73 Huser, vol. 3, 118; Sudhoff, vol. 9, 554.
74 Huser, vol. 3, 119; Sudhoff, vol. 9, 555.
75 Huser, vol. 3, 119; Sudhoff, vol. 9, 555–6.
76 Huser 3,120; Sudhoff, vol. 9, 556–7.
77 “Diechen.”
78 The translation is mildly paraphrased. Huser, vol. 3, 121; Sudhoff, vol. 9, 557–558.
79 Huser 3,123; Sudhoff, vol. 9, 559.
80 Huser 3,122–123; Sudhoff, vol. 9, 559.
81 Huser, vol. 3, 123; Sudhoff, vol. 9, 559.
82 Huser 3,123; Sudhoff, vol. 9, 559–560
83 Huser, vol. 3, 112; Sudhoff, vol. 9, 547–548.
84 Webster, Paracelsus, 16.
85 Gunnoe, “Paracelsus, the Plague, and De Pestilitate,” 508–509; Sudhoff, Bibliographia Paracelsica, pp. 50–52 (no. 33).
86 Sudhoff, vol. 9, 26. Sudhoff apparently took little note of the treatise’s dissonance from the other plague works.
87 Willem F. Daems and Werner Vogler, eds. Das medizinische Consilium des Paracelsus für Abt Johann Jakob Russinger von Pfäfers 1535: Neu-Edition und Kommentar (Einsiedeln: Schweizerische Paracelsus-Gesellschaft, 1986). See especially pp. 17–19 where the authors engage Paracelsus’s very traditional humoral approach in this consilium.
88 This point comes in dialogue with Didier Kahn. See Kahn, "De Pestilitate and Paracelsian Cosmology," and Gunnoe, "Paracelsus, the Plague, and De Pestilitate. See also William R. Newman, “Bad Chemistry: Basilisks and Women in Paracelsus and pseudo-Paracelsus” Ambix 67 (2020): 30-46.
89 Treatments using red coral, oleo laterino, and masterwort for example are offered in both works. He also discusses the “Preune” in both works. While Paracelsus was likely in Sterzing in 1534, he likely composed the Grosse Wundartzney ca. 1535–36, prior to its publication in Ulm and Augsburg in the summer of 1536. See the foreword of Sudhoff, vol. 10, pp. V–XVI; Sudhoff, Bibliographia Paracelsica, pp. 18–25 (nos. 14-16).
90 See Udo Benzenhöfer, “Die prognostischen und mantischen Schriften des Paracelsus,” in Mantik Profile prognostischen Wissens in Wissenschaft und Kultur, ed. Wolfram Hogrebe (Würzburg: Königshausen und Neumann, 2005), 189–199; Kathrin Pfister, “Zwei Himmel—zwei Körper: Zur paracelsischen Kosmologie im astrologischen Tagesschrifttum,” Daphnis 48, 1–2 (2020): 87–103.