Kurzer Begriff, ob ein Mensch an Pest erkrankt ist

From Theatrum Paracelsicum
I. Basic information


Printing History, Manuscripts. First printed in 1553 as a broadsheet by the printer Hans Baumann in Salzburg. Next printed as part of Für Pestilenz (§ ‎3.9) by the same Hans Baumann.

Editions. Not edited by Huser. Edited by Sudhoff in Sämtliche Werke, I/9: appendix, 699.

Relationship between different versions. The two printed texts of 1553 and 1554 are essentially the same with minor variations in the wording.

Structure, genre/form, perspective, style. A list of eleven signs that may indicate infection with the plague.

Relationship to other texts. The text is not found in Regiment/ Gestelt allain für die/ so vnuermeydenlich in Pestilentzischen lüfften verharren vnd beleiben müssen, another plague pamphlet issued by Hans Baumann in 1553.

Authenticity, authorship. Similar lists are found in many contemporary plague treatises. The 1553 broadsheet is attributed to Paracelsus presumably as an advertising measure. Not authentic according to Sudhoff: “Someone with some medical knowledge had this diagnostic document printed […], which only remotely resembles the Sterzing Plague booklet and certainly does not originate from Paracelsus.”

Time of writing. Probably written or compiled in 1553 when the plague raged again, after a hundred years, in Salzburg. Further information may or may not be gathered from a recently discovered and unpublished Chronik des Erzstifts Salzburg, written in 1551/1552 by Helias Brottbeyhel and continued for the years 1553–1561 by Hans Baumann, the printer of the broadsheet.

II. Sources


Manuscripts: no manuscripts known

First printed:

  • 1553 (Ain kurtzer begrif zůerkhennen/ Ob ain Mensch in disen geschwinden leuffen den gebrechen der Pestilentz hab oder nit. D. Philippum Theophrastum beschriben (Salzburg: Hans Baumann, 1553); not in Sudhoff, Bibliographia Paracelsica)
  • 1554 (“Wie vnnd ihn was gestalt zůerkhennen sey/ ob der Mensch (so er sich besorgt) mit diser kranckhait der Pestilentz beladen sey oder nit”, in Für Pestilentz. Ain seer nützlicher vnnd bewerter Tractat […] auß deß weitberüembten vnd hocherfarnen Doctoris Philippj Theophrastj Paracelsj Bůch gezogen. Welches Er/ von diser Khranckhait beschriben, ed. Egidius Karl (Salzburg: Hans Baumann, 1554); VD16 P 643; Sudhoff, Bibliographia Paracelsica, 50–53 n° 33)
III. Bibliography


Essential bibliography: Sudhoff, “Vorwort,” in Paracelsus, Sämtliche Werke, I/9: 698–699

Further bibliographical references:

Felix F. Strauss, “Herzog Ernst von Bayern und Hofbuchdrucker Hans Baumann”, in Salzburger Museum Carolino Augusteum, Jahresschrift 5 (1959), 193–203, on 201

Jürgen Strein and Joachim Telle, “Deutsche Pseudoparacelsica über die Pest: Ein ‘Begriff’ zur Pestdiagnose (1553) und die ‘Tabula de pestilitate’ von Bartholomäus Scultetus (1578),” in Dominik Groß and Monika Reininger, eds., Medizin in Geschichte, Philologie und Ethnologie: Festschrift für Gundolf Keil (Würzburg, 2003), 349–370.

Rudolf Werner Soukup, Chemie in Österreich von den Anfängen bis zum Ende des 18. Jahrhunderts, vol. 1: Bergbau, Alchemie und frühe Chemie (Vienna, 2007), 243.