Text.BP236.A3r/Translation

To the benevolent reader.

Dear reader, this Chirurgia Vulnerum was delivered in person by Philippus Theophrastus Paracelsus, Doctor of Medicine and Professor at the University of Basel, in public lectures to the studying youth. One of his listeners, named Basilius Amerbach of Basel, quickly wrote it down from his mouth, in both Latin and German intermixed, as was the custom at certain universities in Germany in that age. Yet let this not trouble you: it is better that the truth be brought to light simply and faithfully than that falsehoods be adorned with elegant words. The matters themselves are exceedingly good and very useful, as every impartial and well-experienced surgeon or wound physician will gladly acknowledge in testimony to the truth.

The command of Christ, “gather the remaining fragments, that nothing be lost”, extends further than merely to the bread fragments present at that time. Every Christian is obliged diligently to gather whatever good God the Lord allows to come to humankind for its benefit, and faithfully to communicate it for the good of his neighbor. With this in mind, I wished fairly and fraternally to exhort everyone to do the same.

Therefore, out of Christian duty, I could neither nor ought to have refrained from bringing to light this useful little medicinal fragment, which God the Lord has wondrously allowed me to collect, for the aforesaid purpose, as it came into my hands. If anything therein is in error, it should be attributed rather to the scribe than to the author himself.

As for the curae characteristicae, I consider that Paracelsus reported them more in a recitative than in an assertive manner; yet in this matter I leave each person his unbiased judgment. I trust that for my part and good intention I shall incur no ingratitude, since I have published it as I found it. According to my own judgment, I have wished to omit nothing.

I commend you faithfully to God the Lord, the supreme and highest physician, into His protection.

Given at Schleswig, on the Sunday Esto mihi, in the year of Christ 1595.