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Libavius on Digestion and Transmutation

par Moreau, Elisabeth
Référence Renaissance Society of America - RSA Annual Meeting (26-28 March 2015: Berlin (Germany))
Publication Non publié, 2015

Communication à un colloque

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Résumé :

Late medieval alchemy favored the analogy between digestion and transmutation in the human body. This medical metaphor was often combined with the Hippocratic and Galenic definition of digestion as the concoction and transformation of food into the body parts through blood. In the Renaissance, Paracelsian medicine also emphasized digestion as a chymical and physiological process. The present paper aims to explore the interaction of these three currents in the context of late sixteenth-century medicine by taking the example of a German physician, Andreas Libavius (ca. 1550–1616). I will show how this leading Anti-Paracelsian integrated alchemical topoi into the account of food assimilation in his Novus de Medicina veterum tractatus (Frankfurt, 1599). This analysis will shed light on his criticism of the Paracelsians’ emphasis on the role of stomach, occult virtues and tartar.