The Sorcerer's Companion: A Guide to the Magical World of Harry Potter (59 page)

Paracelsus was believed to carry the Sorcerer’s Stone in the hilt of his sword
. (
photo credit 63.1
)

At the age of fourteen Paracelsus left home to study and see the world. Upon graduating from the University of Vienna, where he studied “the four higher arts” (arithmetic, geometry, music, and astrology), he went to Italy to attend medical school. But the outbreak of war cut short his studies, and instead of earning a medical degree he became an army surgeon.

On the battlefield Paracelsus began introducing some of his many original ideas about medicine. Surgery was extremely crude (the position of “surgeon” ranked far below that of doctor; those with medical degrees never performed operations) and Paracelsus intuitively rebelled against accepted practices. It was common, for example, to treat a wound by covering it with paste made of cow dung, feathers, and the fat of poisonous snakes. Injured arms and legs were left to fester and then amputated. Paracelsus chose to simply clean the wounds and let them heal by themselves—a practice that seems obvious to us today but was by no means apparent at the time.

After the war, Paracelsus spent years as a wandering medicine man, traveling through Europe, honing his skills, developing new medicines, and gaining a reputation for curing patients on whom other doctors had given up. Like most physicians of the time, Paracelsus accepted the value of
horoscopes, amulets, charms
, and
spells
in diagnosing and treating patients. What made him different was his focus on research and his willingness to accept what worked and reject what didn’t, no matter what the books said. He conducted countless experiments and wrote volumes about his theories and treatments. He discovered that frog’s eggs could sometimes prevent infection when applied to a wound (they contain iodine). He also realized that dosage and timing were important factors in how medicines work, and he developed a whole new array of pharmaceuticals based on mineral and metallic compounds to complement traditional plant-based medicines. And while he believed in the existence of magical creatures, he did not let these beliefs distract him from the evidence of his own eyes. Miners’ diseases, he wrote, were not caused by hostile
gnomes
as most people believed, but by toxic metals and fumes. Paracelsus believed that gnomes,
demons
, and
fairies
were real, but they lived in a world apart from humans and were not the causes of disease, which came from natural, not supernatural, forces.

As his fame as a healer grew, so did his reputation for boasting, arrogance, picking fights, and generally outrageous behavior. His fellow doctors, he said, were “fools” and “accredited asses” who enjoyed the wealth and prestige that came with being a doctor, but cared little for their patients. When he was awarded a teaching position at the University of Basel, Paracelsus showed his disdain for the school’s curriculum by tossing one of the most revered medical textbooks of the day—Avicenna’s
Canon of Medicine
—into a graduation day bonfire! As for Galen and Celsus, the ancient Roman physicians whose teachings formed the very foundation of medical practice, Paracelsus bragged that his own knowledge was better (indeed, the Latin pen name he chose for himself—Paracelsus—means “superior to Celsus”).

Such behavior was typical and explains why Paracelsus was always on the move. “I was strange,” he wrote, “and no one could cope with me.” Despite the controversy that always swirled around him, one thing was not in doubt—the effectiveness of his methods. When he died in 1541 at the age of forty-eight, Paracelsus was legendary throughout Europe, not only as a remarkable doctor, but as a wizard with spectacular powers. Some said that he had used his knowledge of alchemy to create the Philosopher’s Stone that he kept in the hilt of the enormous sword that always hung by his side. It was rumored that he could be in two places at once and could make gold at will (actually, he was broke most of the time). Paracelsus did not deny these things. He relished the image of being a wizard and recognized that those who believed in his miraculous powers could most readily be influenced by them. Today, the power of belief is recognized as an important factor in healing and recovery.

Of all Paracelsus’ original prescriptions, the only one still in use today is zinc ointment, a treatment for skin disease. Nonetheless, his impact on medicine was enormous. His blistering tirades against the ancient authorities helped open the way to new treatments and theories. His experiments with metals and minerals helped establish the science of chemistry. He was the first to write a book about an occupational illness (miners’ diseases) and among the first to recognize the importance of exercise and fresh air on health. Although science as we know it today did not exist during his lifetime, Paracelsus possessed a strong scientific
spirit
—the passion to explore and discover the secrets of the universe. “Only ignoramuses,” he wrote, “allege that Nature has not provided a remedy against every illness.” As for his legacy in the wizarding community, it could not be better preserved than it is now—in the hearts and minds of the students of Hogwarts.

n some sense, we all know what it’s like to be petrified—possessed by fear so complete it renders us unable to move. But fortunately none of us have shared Hermione’s unpleasant experience of
literal
petrification—being turned to stone.

In the mythology of ancient Greece, many unfortunate souls knew what it was like to have their limbs stiffen into permanent immobility. Some were the victims of the monster Medusa, whose hideous face and hair of hissing
snakes
made her so terrifying that anyone who looked upon her was instantly turned to stone. The cave in which she lived was filled with the statue-like figures of all who had dared approach her. Medusa was eventually killed by the young hero Perseus, who cut off her head while looking at her reflection in his shield, thus avoiding a direct (and fatal) glance at her face. Medusa’s head retained its power to petrify even after her death, and Perseus took his trophy with him on many adventures, pulling it out of his bag and holding it aloft to stop his enemies in their tracks.

Turning people to stone was by no means a pleasure reserved for monsters like Medusa. Petrification was also a punishment favored by the gods of Olympus, especially for mortals they considered arrogant or disobedient. Most famous among these was Niobe, the Queen of Thebes, who angered the gods by boasting that she had twelve children, while the goddess Leto had only two. Bristling at this insult to their mother, Leto’s children, Apollo and Artemis, quickly descended from the heavens and shot all of Niobe’s offspring with deadly arrows. The devastated Niobe began to weep uncontrollably. Sinking to the ground in motionless grief, she was transformed into a stone that would remain perpetually wet with tears.

Petrification has also been a prominent theme in folklore, especially wherever unusual rock formations spark the imagination to see humans or animals in their shapes. In a town in Germany where the cliffs resemble men (at least to the open-minded), locals have long told the story of a group of mountain
dwarfs
who were out celebrating a wedding when they were turned to stone by an evil
ghost
. In Scandinavia, strangely shaped rocks are often said to be the petrified bodies of
trolls
, who were turned to stone when they failed to return to their underground homes before daylight.

In British folklore, the petrification of living people is said to account for the presence of hundreds of stone circles, mysterious monuments actually constructed by the prehistoric peoples of western Europe between 3000 and 1200
B.C.
In local legend, “Long Meg and Her Daughters,” a stone circle in Cumbria, England, is said to be a gathering of
witches
who were turned to stone by a
wizard
who discovered them. One of the Stanton Drew circles in Avon, England, is said to contain the bride, groom, dancers, and fiddlers of a wedding party, all turned to stone by the Devil, who joined their celebration in disguise.

The United States is not dotted with mysterious stone monuments, but that hasn’t stopped its citizens from being interested in tales about petrification. During the nineteenth century, American newspapers published dozens of reports about petrified human bodies found buried in the ground, sitting on boulders, or mummified in tree trunks. There were even reports of men who had seen other men turn to stone before their very eyes! All were hoaxes invented by enterprising journalists who needed to fill space and entertain the gullible public.
Huckleberry Finn
author Mark Twain wrote one of the more exaggerated of these stories in an attempt to ridicule this trend, but much to his dismay, his readers were simply eager to hear more.

he most remarkable thing about the phoenix, as Harry learns firsthand while waiting in Albus Dumbledore’s office, is that periodically—every five hundred years or so—this legendary bird bursts into flame, is reduced to ashes, and rises from those ashes newborn. In ancient Greek and Egyptian mythology this cycle of fiery death and rebirth was associated with the cycle of the sun, which “died” every night, plunging the world into darkness, and was born again the following day. During the Middle Ages the phoenix became part of Christian symbolism, representing death, resurrection, and eternal life, while today it is a common metaphor for triumph over adversity. Anyone who has overcome defeat or recovered from a terrible calamity is said to have “risen from the ashes.” In a somewhat different form, the phoenix is also part of Chinese mythology, where for centuries it has been a symbol of power, integrity, loyalty, honesty, and justice.