The Archidoxes and Medico-Chemical Works of Paracelsus

or that place presumed by me. And the more that has been impressed in my imagination and thought, the more clearly I run. By this reason, the imagination of my course is the motive force. Not otherwise does medicine cleanse the bodies in which the spiritual is, by which it happens that that motion is more easily performed.

Double traction of the body.

Thirdly, it must be understood that in the body a distribution is made into all members, from all those things which are offered either outside or inside. In that distribution a change happens, by which things are changed so that one part serves the temperament of the heart, another is accommodated to the nature of the brain. And thus also concerning the rest. But the body attracts to itself in two ways, namely internally and externally. Internally it attracts whatever is assumed through the mouth. Externally it attracts air, earth, water, and fire. The matter is to be constituted and defined as follows. Those things which are received inwardly are not necessary to write about, since they are known through the foundation of nature, what should be distributed, as below concerning the division. But externally it is to be understood thus, that the body attracts to itself what is necessary from the four external elements through the whole skin. Which, if it did not happen, internal food could not suffice for the sustenance of man. Since the humor, not existing in the body by habit, is extracted by it from water, just as it can also happen, that as long as one stands or sits in it, he might extinguish thirst so that there is no need to quench it outwardly. Not indeed in such a way that thirst is not quenched as fire is by water, but the internal heat attracts the external humor to itself, and drinks it, not otherwise than if it were internal.
Cows in the Alps do not drink for the whole summer.

From this it happens that cows can remain in the Alps for the whole summer without drink: air indeed exists as drink for them, or supplies its place. The same must also be established concerning man.

Remedy for hunger: earth placed on the stomach.

Nature, moreover, of man can also be sustained without food, when he has been planted with his feet in the earth. Thus we saw a certain man, who lived for six months without food, and was sustained by that alone, that he carried a part of the earth and a clod over his stomach, and having dried it, he assumed a new and fresh one from time to time. He never reported that he was hungry during that whole time: the cause of which thing we place in the appetite of nature.

Examples of starvation.

Thus also through medicine we have seen a certain man who sustained himself for many years, namely through the quintessence of gold, so that for each day he would barely assume half a scruple of it. Hence there were also many others, who for many years, as twenty, ate nothing, such as I remember having seen in our times. This very thing is usually attributed by some to the integrity and piety of persons, and also to God, which we do not at all desire to impugn or judge.
Sadness calms hunger and thirst.

However, it is natural, as sorrow, melancholy, and despondency of mind remove hunger and thirst, so that through the body's attraction to itself for many