The Role of Alchemy in Roger Bacon's Medical Works
Meagan Allen
20 June 2023 – 5
PM (CEST)
In
a small fragment of a work now called the Liber
sex scientiarum,
the English Franciscan Roger Bacon explained that
the human body had the potential to be immortal. If
Adam had remained in the Garden of Eden, he would
have been able to live forever, sustained by the
fruit produced by the Tree of Life. But even though
mankind had sinned, Bacon understood the Bible to
teach that all humans would eventually reach the
ideal state of immortality, albeit only after the
resurrection.At
the moment of the resurrection, each person would
receive an incorruptible, and therefore immortal
body, which would be subject to neither disease,
decay, nor aging. Despite mankind’s fall, Bacon
said, wise men could learn how to make
approximations of these bodies, so that their own
lives would be greatly lengthened. Though no one
could live forever before the resurrection, wise men
might be able to extend their lives by decades, even
centuries, through the prolongatio
vitae—the
extreme prolongation of life.
My
talk examines Bacon’s alchemical theories and
explains how he believed that the key to extending
life lay not in the curricula as taught in the
medical faculties of the universities, but in the
study of alchemy. Though
twelfth- and thirteenth-century alchemy was
generally concerned with the transmutation of
metals, Bacon’s alchemy was a much larger area of
study, encompassing the generation and corruption of
all material things in the sublunary world. It was
this aspect of alchemy, which Bacon referred to as
speculative alchemy, that explained how the four
elements interacted with each other to make the
basis of reality.
Thus,
the study of alchemy in conjunction with humoral
medicine could explain not only how the human body
worked, but how it interacted with the materials
around it, illuminating the method of prolonging
life to extreme lengths.
Fabrizio
Bigotti
Centre for the Study of
Medicine and the Body in the
Renaissance (CSMBR) - Director
Domus
Comeliana, Via Cardinale Maffi 48, 56126
Pisa, Italy
Tel.:
+39.02.006.20.51 - Mobile:
+39.333.13.12.203
Email: f...@csmbr.fondazionecomel.org
Palgrave
Studies in Medieval and Early Modern Medicine
(PSMEMM) - Co-Editor
Palgrave
MacMillan - Springer Nature
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