Medicine

Another popular application of magnetic theory to medicine Kircher took issue with was magnetic transplantation, remedies which attempted to transfer diseases to animals or plants via the mechanism of magnetism. There were varied methods and ailments treated, but as an example, a cure for leprosy and jaundice was published in 1611 by physician Johann Burgrav in his book Cura morborum magnetic ex Theophrasiti Paraclesi mumia and is indicative of the type of treatment Kircher disavowed. Burgrav entreated physicians to take the blood of the patient and put it in an empty eggshell. The eggshell would then be sealed and given to a hen for two weeks. After which the eggshell would be fed to a dog or pig, and the disease would lodge in the animal while the patient was cured. Burgrav stated that the cure worked through putrefaction, wherein the blood became magnetic as it sat, and drew the unbalanced humors to it, allowing for the transferal between man and animal. Kircher thought all of this was utterly incorrect. Kircher had no model for “magnetizing” objects, as magnetism was an inherent trait to minerals. The time and the process of letting a hen brood on the egg were all unsupported and were only included to convince the patient of the efficacy of the cure. He did not believe that this treatment was ever effective, with successes attributable only to circumstance and coincidence wherein the disease was cured through other means.^[2]

A related cure to those of magnetic transplantation, was that of the weapon salve, a cure which was growing in popularity and widespread interest in Kircher’s day. The weapon salve was essentially a way to heal a patient who had been recently and violently wounded. The physician would take part of the body of the patient, typically their blood, and apply it to the weapon which caused the wound. This was said to heal the wound even if the weapon had been removed from the body, and it was claimed that it worked through magnetic and sympathetic action between the salve and the wound, an action which could work over an infinite distance. The weapon salve was a major contemporary question, one explored by contemporary and fellow scholar of magnetism, Fludd, and it was Fludd’s theories on the functionality of the salve that Kircher primarily focused on refuting. Fludd asserted that there was a resonance in the soul which facilitated the healing, or perhaps the wounds were healed through God or angels. This spiritual nature would of course have an infinite boundary. To refute these Kircher cited that an Aristotelian soul could not have a material effect, which the healing of a wound would be. Secondly, if the cure was magnetic in nature, it could not have a spiritual origin, as magnetism was a natural not a spiritual cure. Finally, there being no limit to its range was completely irreconcilable with its proposed natural and magnetic functioning. If this material cure could work over any distance, then disease would spread with no mind to location or seasonality. The limited area of effect of natural phenomena was an intrinsic element of an agent being natural.

Kircher believed that any instances where the cure worked, it was not due to magnetic or natural influences, but was rather cacomagical, of the black arts, and was an operation of devils, where practitioners either intentionally or unintentionally invoked the help of these unnatural sources. Kircher’s conclusion about the weapon salve was that “‘ huius generis sunt pseudomagnetica illa medicamenta Daemonis schola verius, quam ex naturae phrontisterio deducta,’ a pseudomagnetic medicant that more truly comes from the school of a demon, than are taken from the teachings of nature.^[3]”^[4] The question of the cure was a topical one, and Kircher’s firm condemnation was not just one of intellectual pride, but impacted the physical and spiritual health of the patients and practitioners alike. In Kircher’s strong refutation, he also clarifies the limitations of his magnetic theories, especially the source of magnetism and the limitations to its range.

Kircher’s medical magnetism did not so much focus on the external magnetic qualities of the cure, as the previous examples did, but rather how the functions of attraction and repulsion in the body and how medicine and poisons interacted with those functions. In terms of the body, Kircher conceived of a model of nutrition based on attraction where the stomach was the great loadstone of the body, and other organs were smaller ones. The stomach attracted food to it, and the other organs and veins drew their vitals to themselves. Everything was hungry and brought to itself that which it needed. In a similar manner of attraction, medicinal remedies would draw excess humors to them, where they would then be expelled from the body. There were two types of pulls that medicine could have, either pulling from the center in or pushing from the center out. Kircher claimed this attraction was specifically based on the familiarity or similarity of the cure to the disease, which was why he saw it as a magnetic action – a metallic loadstone attracted iron, thus other magnetic functions could work with this same concept of similarity. In this magnetic attraction of the harmful elements, the ens of the ailment, the medicament would then be purged. The purging occurred through bodily excretions like sweat, urine, saliva, fecal matter. While this second stage was not magnetic, the entire process was initiated through the magnetic power of the medicine.^[5]

In Magnes, Kircher was very interested in exploring the role of magnetism in the antidote-poison dynamic. Kircher described a poison as any and all “foreign substances which were noxious to the heart, the fountainhead of the vital spirits, and any substance directly corruptive of animal life;^[6]” some were excessively hot or cold and these energies burnt or congealed the heart, respectively, while others could block the passage of blood with their humidity. Poisons were found across the organic and mineral worlds with arsenic, antimony and mercury as mineral examples while mandrake and the seeds and flowers of monkshood as organic examples Kircher cited. He also felt that some came from celestial influences, such as airborne plagues and diseases. He even included venomous animals in this model, whose toxicity came from the animals magnetically absorbing the poisons of their landscape and this poisonous element was a vital piece of their diet. To take snakes as an example, Kircher believed that they ate or breathed putrid, contagious, and noxious substances and to them it was as natural as a person’s own need for water or bread. He postulated that one could milk a viper of its venom, place it in the poisonous soils of its original habitat, and soon the venom would be replenished through the attractive quality of the soil. Because of Kircher’s belief in the power of similarity in medicine, he believed that regardless of the origin of the poison, the antidote was always magnetic and always something similar to the original poison. If one was bitten by a viper, they only had to eat it to be cured. It would draw the poisons from the fibers of the body to the antidote in the stomach, where they would cling together until they were passed.^[7]

A major flaw of Kircher’s however was quite clear in his work in medicine – his credulity. He rarely if ever questioned anecdotes and accounts, trusting that the source kept embellishments to a minimum and never lied or was false in their recollections. While he did not always agree with the conclusions reached in the original tales, he took them as concrete evidence. There was little in this section which Kircher observed or experimented with firsthand. The first section consisted mostly of Kircher’s refutation of the causes of certain cures and subsequently his theory on the system of attraction in the body and medicine, with no real doctoring by Kircher. Tarantism was a widely known and written disease, but a curiosity which rarely occurred, and one Kircher never actually witnessed. His theories were based entirely upon second and third hand accounts, many of which were from cases which happened well before his own birth. Even one of the few instances of his in-person verification or investigation into one of the stories, the cave of snakes, demonstrated this. Upon his visit he did not find any of the chambers or steam rooms infested with healing snakes, but rather a tree with a dried snakeskin attached. Even so, he still held the secondhand accounts of the cave in greater esteem than his own observations because they offered an interesting medical phenomenon. This is a pervasive problem in Magnes, but in the other sections Kircher has his own personal experimentation or observations, or even the measurements provided from other Jesuits on his request. In his writing on medicine, he is relying upon anecdotes, written and oral, and extrapolating answers by applying his own theory of magnetism to the anecdotes. It is a curious break from his previous level of experimentation.

Kircher’s medicinal and anatomical magnetism further broadened the concept of magnetism developed in Magnes. Magnetism and attraction were not the only forces operating in people; humors were an incredibly significant field of knowledge in the medical world, and it was in their balance that health was achieved. However, it was the main mechanism through which change was achieved. Where plant life was an analogy to all the parts of a loadstone, the body utilized primarily the power of attraction and sympathy. Nutrients and blood were circulated through the attractive powers of organs. Even with venomous animals, their bodies necessitated the poisons so harmful to humans, and absorbed them much in the same way that humans absorbed their nutrients. The poisons were not inherently harmful, there was no wicked intention, but the ingestion of the noxious elements unbalanced humors in the body. Kircher maintained the ability of a loadstone to attract only one unique thing (such as iron) and applied it to his model of like attracting like. Even as the logic and systems became more complex and mystical, he kept a consistent set of rules around magnetism and attempted to integrate those into the intricate reality he was working in.