Paracelsus [13min @15:40]

In this episode of "Material World", Quentin Cooper is joined by science writer Philip Ball and Dr Peter Forshaw, British Academy Postdoctoral Fellow, Birkbeck, University of London, to discuss the myth, life and legacy of Philip Theophrastus Aureolus Bombastus von Hohenheim, or Paracelsus, the 16th Century medic on the border between the medieval and modern. He was both army surgeon and alchemist, and was rumoured to have made a Faustian bargain with the devil to regain his youth. It was said that he travelled with a magical white horse and stored the elixir of life in the pommel of his sword. But who was Paracelsus and what did he really believe and practice? Quentin unravels the story of a man who wrote influential books on medicine, surgery, alchemy and theology, while living a drunken, combative, vagabond life.