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PubMed1993

[Can medicine move mountains?].

For the author involvement with Paracelsus demands consideration of both, socio-cultural as well as historico-cultural aspects. Each generation has obtained a different picture of this famous physician from Einsiedeln. Around 1941 the progress initiated by Paracelsus has been emphasized, such as the assumed foundation of chemistry, chemotherapy, and the renewal of surgery, occupational medicine, balneology and many more. For the year 1941 (= 400th anniversary of Paracelsus death) a nationalistic perception of Paracelsus was typical. For National-Socialistic Germany, Paracelsus was the founder of a "German medicine" as a contrast to medicine oriented towards France and Jewish-Arabia. Paracelsus also was seen as a pioneer of the experiment and as opponent of medical dilettantism in a popular direction. The perception of Paracelsus of 1993 is completely different. Today Theophrastus from Hohenheim is seen in a post-modern perspective, not as the man of progress, but as one, who opposed to the medicine of his age a partial ancient natural medicine, including the arts of gypsies, witches and midwives. The magic and psychosomatic informations of Paracelsus are seen as precious compensation for losses that we had to accept in the progress of modern medicine. As a psychiatrist Paracelsus was involved with diseases that originated from a "misuse of credo". He reports about collective psychoses, for example those appearing in the group of anabaptists in St. Gallen. Misuse of credo derives from intended provocation of martyrium. To move mountains with one's faith is another pathologic imagination. A therapy should aim at the restitution of such a "mountain" moved by the ill patient. Paracelsus demands the greatest mercy in dealing with mentally ill patients. This disease is also a challenge for theology: "What gives harm to the body destroys the house of the eternal".(ABSTRACT TRUNCATED AT 250 WORDS)

Culture↗
PubMed1994

[How did Theophrast von Hohenheim become a theologian? His Salzburg sojourn 1524/25].

For a long time the question arose in research on Paracelsus what reasons might have initiated his writings about religious or even particularly theological subjects. Because the physician Paracelsus always saw his scientific interests in the context of the ethical idea of loving care for the next, it may be concluded that his interest for questions about lived christianity may also root in ethical motivations. And indeed: During the social troubles of 1524/25 (Bauernkrieg, peasants' war), Paracelsus found himself compelled to discuss religious questions by a similar engagement for the next. The text traces the historic circumstances as well as the visualized contents of the religious problems, by which Paracelsus was concerned during his study in Salzburg, and tries to show Hohenheim's religious role in this time burdened with conflicts.

Austria↗
PubMed1994

[About healing with nature and about love for the patient].

In the light of a nature-centered philosophy and its image of man and universe, the medical science of Paracelsus appears 'enlightened by nature'. Based on this experience, the physician found his medical art on the 'four pillars' ('Philosophia', 'Astronomia', 'Alchimia', 'Physica'). Acting out of the healing power of nature would be incomplete, if 'Physica' would not be accompanied by 'Virtus', the ethical component of all medical actions. This is described by Paracelsus by the picture of mercy ('Barmherzigkeit'), in whose sentiment all medical acting finds its final motivation. Therefore, the script concentrates in particular on what Paracelsus describes as 'love for the patient'.

Ethics, Medical↗
PubMed2002

Use of conserved key amino acid positions to morph protein folds.

By using three-dimensional (3D) structure alignments and a previously published method to determine Conserved Key Amino Acid Positions (CKAAPs) we propose a theoretical method to design mutations that can be used to morph the protein folds. The original Paracelsus challenge, met by several groups, called for the engineering of a stable but different structure by modifying less than 50% of the amino acid residues. We have used the sequences from the Protein Data Bank (PDB) identifiers 1ROP, and 2CRO, which were previously used in the Paracelsus challenge by those groups, and suggest mutation to CKAAPs to morph the protein fold. The total number of mutations suggested is less than 40% of the starting sequence theoretically improving the challenge results. From secondary structure prediction experiments of the proposed mutant sequence structures, we observe that each of the suggested mutant protein sequences likely folds to a different, non-native potentially stable target structure. These results are an early indicator that analyses using structure alignments leading to CKAAPs of a given structure are of value in protein engineering experiments.

Algorithms↗
PubMed1998

Chemists, physicians, and changing perspectives on the scientific revolution.

Positivism in the history of science and medicine was challenged by Walter Pagel more than fifty years ago. He sought to understand early modern figures such as Harvey, Paracelsus, and van Helmont by looking at all their work, including nonscientific material generally ignored by other scholars. Of special importance in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries was the chemistry found in the writings of Paracelsus and his followers. These "chemical philosophers" offered a new philosophy based on chemistry and chemical analogies that was to replace the works of the ancients. As physicians, they debated first with Galenists and Aristotelians and later with mechanists. The essay argues that these debates were an essential chapter in the development of the Scientific Revolution and important for understanding the Chemical Revolution of the eighteenth century.

Alchemy↗
PubMed1998

[The impact of macro- and microcosm on the perception of illness and patient].

The orgins of the idea of macro- and microcosm date back to the Ancient Greek thought. And however often that idea recurred in historically different epochs always carrying the sign of time it invariably assumed there was a correspondence between the universe (macrocosm) and man (microcosm). This type of correlation of both worlds was viewed as a reflection of cosmic harmony and common material (6/5th century BC) or the unity of what is created with the emphasis put on the uniqueness of man (Middle Ages). The philosophical consequence of such approach was the belief that the knowledge of one reality allows one to explain another. Most often such reasoning led from understanding the macrocosm (allowing for stars) to reflections on man. Advocates of such an approach to the perception of man and nature were two great scientific doctors Hippocrates (5th century BC) and Paracelsus (16th century). They both claimed that man retained communication with the whole universe. Paracelsus perceived the world and man in a unity that permitted to recognize an equivalent of anatomy in astronomy. This exceptional link between both cosms was a guarantee for health. Illness occurred as a result of the disturbance of harmony between both worlds. In this context, the task of medical science was to consist in such understanding of the forces present in macro- and microcosm that could restore the line between the nature and man inflicted with illness.

Disease↗
PubMed1994

[Health--disease: theory and practice of "integrative medicine"].

Worldwide our knowledge about health and disease and the frame as well as the goals in our medical education are increasingly discussed by the medical profession and our society. Therefore some aspects are presented in order to develop perspectives for and in our thinking and actions in an 'integrative medicine'. The five entities, formulated, through Paracelsus about 500 years ago, are transformed into our time. Regardless of necessary technical advances in medicine, it becomes increasingly obvious that we still have to integrate the different entities of Paracelsus into a multilayered composite medicine in the coming decades.

Complementary Therapies↗
PubMed1993

[Valentin Rösswurm: on the social history of Paracelsism in the 16th century].

The reactions awakened in his own day by the lithotomist Valentin Rösswurm were not many but varied. Up to now only the controversy about his Paracelsus connection has been mentioned in some studies on Paracelsian medicine in 16th-century England. Nothing has been known so far about the social background of the foreign doctor who came to England from the Continent. New documents found in various European archives enable us to reconstruct the career of another disciple of Paracelsus who earned his living by lithotomy and herniotomy, being one of the many itinerant surgeons who flocked European cities in the early modern period. The new evidence also does justice to a man accused of being a quack by his English critics but who was in fact an experienced and literate surgeon no better and no worse than the local healers with whom he competed for wealthy clients.

England↗
PubMed1998

[Important results of about 45 years balneo-medical research in Bad Hall].

It was tried to show the most essential results of a approximately 45 years' research activity on the field of iodine balneology from the Paracelsus Institute and--since 1993--from the Paracelsus-Gesellschaft Bad Hall. The papers were concerned with: basical studies about the chemistry of the iodine waters, generation of special analytic methods and techniques for iodine determinations and for investigations of the iodine metabolism, generation of new therapeutical iodine applications (for example: eye iontophoresis, electro-aerosol; preparation of the iodine water for a mineral water indoor swimming-bath and for special therapy solutions), investigation of the (favourable) iodine effects on the cardiac and circulation system, on blood rheology, thyroid function, lipid metabolism and on the antioxidant defence mechanisms (with special consequences for arteriosclerosis, diabetes mellitus and cataract), also on visual function and eye diseases (retina, color perception, contrast sensitiveness, cataract, dry eye) and respiratory diseases. Comparative studies on patients and on experimental animals as well as model experiments (e.g. on connective tissue: in vitro studies; tissue cultures) have been used to objectify many empirically observed cure effects. Possible side-effects of a cure with iodine brine (e.g. iodism) were mentioned.

Austria↗
PubMed2001

Conserved key amino acid positions (CKAAPs) derived from the analysis of common substructures in proteins.

An all-against-all protein structure comparison using the Combinatorial Extension (CE) algorithm applied to a representative set of PDB structures revealed a gallery of common substructures in proteins (http://cl.sdsc.edu/ce.html). These substructures represent commonly identified folds, domains, or components thereof. Most of the subsequences forming these similar substructures have no significant sequence similarity. We present a method to identify conserved amino acid positions and residue-dependent property clusters within these subsequences starting with structure alignments. Each of the subsequences is aligned to its homologues in SWALL, a nonredundant protein sequence database. The most similar sequences are purged into a common frequency matrix, and weighted homologues of each one of the subsequences are used in scoring for conserved key amino acid positions (CKAAPs). We have set the top 20% of the high-scoring positions in each substructure to be CKAAPs. It is hypothesized that CKAAPs may be responsible for the common folding patterns in either a local or global view of the protein-folding pathway. Where a significant number of structures exist, CKAAPs have also been identified in structure alignments of complete polypeptide chains from the same protein family or superfamily. Evidence to support the presence of CKAAPs comes from other computational approaches and experimental studies of mutation and protein-folding experiments, notably the Paracelsus challenge. Finally, the structural environment of CKAAPs versus non-CKAAPs is examined for solvent accessibility, hydrogen bonding, and secondary structure. The identification of CKAAPs has important implications for protein engineering, fold recognition, modeling, and structure prediction studies and is dependent on the availability of structures and an accurate structure alignment methodology. Proteins 2001;42:148-163.

Algorithms↗
PubMed2004

[The role of imagination in modern medicine].

In Renaissance and early modern times, the concept of imagination (Latin imaginatio) was essential for the (natural) philosophical explanation of magic processes, especially in the anthropology of Paracelsus. He assumed that imagination was a natural vital power including cosmic, mental, phychical, and physical dimensions. The Paracelsians criticized traditional humor pathology ignoring their theory of' 'natural magic'. On the other hand, they were criticized by their adversaries as charlatans practicing 'black magic'. About 1800, in between enlightenment and romanticism, the healing concept of, animal magnetism' (Mesmerism) evoked an analogous debate, whether, magnetic' phenomena originated from a real (physical) power (so-called, fluidum') or were just due to fantasy or imagination (German Einbildungskraft). At the end of the 19th century, the French internist Hippolyte Bernheim created-against the background of medical hypnosis (hypnotism') as a consequence of Mesmerism - his theory of suggestion and autosuggestion: a new paradigm of psychological respectively psychosomatic medicine, which became the basis for the concept of, placebo' in modern biomedicine. From now on, all the effects of, alternative medicine' could easily be explained by the, placebo-effect', more or less founded - at least unconsciously - on fraud.

Europe↗