According to Paracelsus, in the same way that plants purify the atmosphere by accepting into their constitutions the carbon dioxid exhaled by animals and humans, so may plants and animals accept disease elements transferred to them by human beings. These lower forms of life, having organisms and needs different from man, are often able to assimilate these substances without ill effect. At other times, the plant or animal dies, sacrificed in order that the more intelligent, and consequently more useful, creature may survive. Paracelsus discovered that in either case the patient was gradually relieved of his malady. When the lower life had either completely assimilated the foreign mumia from the patient, or had itself died and disintegrated as the result of its inability to do so, complete recovery resulted. Many years of investigation were necessary to determine which herb or animal most readily accepted the mumia of each of various diseases.

Now if a learned physician inquireth of the sick person from what his disease is proceeded, and taketh that which is the cause of the disease,...

Timaeus: and all other such humors as pour forth in the daily purgings of the body. And all these are factors in disease, whenever the blood is not...

Behold! man becometh weak, faint and sick, and if no remedy be used, then he soon falls into death. The sickness is caused either by some bitter and...

Go into a Meadow, and look upon the Herbs and Flowers which grow all out of the Earth, and always one is fairer and more fragrant in Smell than the...

Timaeus: is by no means acceptable, under any other conditions, to a man of sense, it being the medical kind of purging by means of drugs. For no...

So now, if thou minglest with this water or powder some good treacle or the like, which holdeth captive the rising up and the power of the wrath in th...