Christoph Wirsung

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Christoph Wirsung (* 1500 in Augsburg , † 1571 in Heidelberg ) was a German doctor , pharmacist , councilor, translator and author of the recipe collection Artzney Buch .

Life

Christoph Wirsung was born in Augsburg in 1500 as the son of the rich merchant Marx Wirsung and Agathe Sulzer, who came from a wealthy merchant family. He was given a humanistic education; When he was about 14 years old, he was sent to Italy for education and training. In Venice he acquired a thorough knowledge of the language, which he later used in his translation work. After spending several years abroad, he returned to Germany around 1520 and, after his father's death in 1521, took over his father's pharmacy in Augsburg together with his mother, which he ran alone from 1530. In addition to his work as a pharmacist, Wirsung was involved in the fortunes of Augsburg as a councilor . Around 1562, perhaps caused by the death of his son Philipp (d. 1562), he moved to Heidelberg to live with his daughter Maria, who was married to the lawyer and later Chancellor of the Electoral Palatinate, Christoph Ehe (1528–1592). There he died on January 25, 1571, three years after the publication of his "Artzney Book".

Translation activity

During his studies in Italy, Wirsung got to know the Spanish prose drama “Celestina” (in Italian translation) and translated it into German. He translated several sermons of the former Vicar General of the Capuchin Order, Bernhard von Ochino (1487–1564), who had been expelled from Italy for heresy, into German. Wirsung's translation achieved a certain literary fame because it contains the first sonnet in German (as a translation from Italian).

The "Artzney Book"

After moving to his daughter in Heidelberg , Wirsung began to organize his extensive recipe collection (approx. 15,000 recipes). With his printed recipe collection, Wirsung wanted to enable urban and rural populations to correctly recognize and assess diseases, and to instruct them to use the right medicines for healing. His book was intended to be of particular use to the medical layperson. He wanted, as he emphatically writes, not only to provide information about expensive medicines, but also to offer funds for those on a budget. Wirsung divided his “Artzney Buch” into four parts according to the classic “a capite ad calcem” order (from head to feet), in which the head, chest, abdomen and the organs located in them as well as the limbs and their diseases are treated . Four more parts are added, in which skin diseases, fever as an independent disease, the plague and poisoning are described; An eighth part is attached, in which gingerbread , spiced wines, oils, water of life and gold are described with detailed instructions on how to make them. The sections devoted to the individual diseases, in which the cause and treatment of the complaints are explained, always follow the same schematic structure:

  • Each section begins with a theoretical part in which Wirsung first explains the anatomy and humoral-pathological constitution (complexion) of the healthy and diseased organ and explains the etiology and symptoms of the disease. It is remarkable that in this theoretical part Wirsung occasionally even informed his reader about different doctrines of medical capacities.
  • This first theoretical part is followed by the second therapeutic-practical part. This always begins with suggestions for evacuating measures, that is, purgations (cleanings) in different variations and strengths are recommended, whereby emollient or laxative measures predominate, often supplemented by bloodletting . Then the actual treatment of the disease is described with a large selection of drugs in different dosage forms.
  • The so-called 'regiments' then form the end, that is, the patient receives detailed instructions relating to his entire life. They include dietary recommendations for eating and drinking, as well as rules of conduct for daily routine, sleeping and waking, exercise and rest, sexual intercourse, clothing and home furnishings. The range of medicines extends from very simple, practically free home remedies such as the recommendation to lay a young dog on its bare stomach in order to cure a "cold stomach", to the golden egg, a widely used recipe that protects against plague and It was also supposed to heal, in which a blown egg, which only contained the yolk, was to be stuffed with saffron before further processing .

assessment

The work was published in Heidelberg in 1568; Wirsung dedicated it to Elector Friedrich III. from the Palatinate . It was to become a valued reference work, had several editions and was translated into Dutch and English. The theoretical explanations lift Wirsung's work far beyond the usual German pharmacopoeia of the time and made it a medical textbook for the reader at the same time.

Fonts (selection)

literature

  • Wolfgang U. Eckart: The "Artzney book" (1568) by Christoph Wirsung. In: Commentary on the facsimile edition of the "Artzney Book" by Christoph Wirsung. Bibliotheca Palatina Facsimile Publishing House. o. O. 2007.
  • Wilhelm Fehse : "Christof Wirsungs German Celestina Translations", E. Karras, Halle (Saale), 1902
  • Hermann Arthur Lier:  Wirsung, Christoph . In: Allgemeine Deutsche Biographie (ADB). Volume 43, Duncker & Humblot, Leipzig 1898, p. 521.
  • Kathrin Pfister, Ulrike Schofer: Benefit originating from all housefathers - The Heidelberg “Artzney Book” by the pharmacist Christoph Wirsung (1500–1571) . In: Pharmacy Past and Present . Festival ceremony for Wolf-Dieter Müller-Jahncke on his 65th birthday. Edited by Christoph Friedrich and Joachim Telle. Stuttgart 2009, pp. 345-361.
  • Joachim Telle : [Art.] Wirsung's "Artzney Book" - medicine for the "common man". In: Bibliotheca Palatina. Exhibition catalog, text volume. Edited by Elmar Mittler. Heidelberg 1986, pp. 227-229.
  • Joachim Telle: [Art.] Wirsung, Christoph. In: Killy Literaturlexikon, Sp. 22700-22702.

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Josef Benzing: The book printers of the 16th and 17th centuries in the German-speaking area (contributions to books and libraries, vol. 12). Wiesbaden 1982.
  2. ↑ Gerhard Gensthaler: The Medizinalwesen the free city Augsburg to the 16th century with consideration of the first Pharmacopoeia of 1564 and its other issues. Augsburg 1973.
  3. ^ Friedrich Roth: Augsburg Reformation History 1517-1530. 4 vols. Munich 1901–1911.
  4. ↑ Philip McNair: To the Bastard Christianity. The Italian Background of the first known Sonnet in German. In: From Wolfram and Petrarch to Goethe and Grass. Edited by DH Green, LP Johnson and Dieter Wuttke. Baden-Baden 1982, pp. 257-263.
personal data
SURNAME Wirsung, Christoph
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German pharmacist
DATE OF BIRTH 1500
PLACE OF BIRTH augsburg
DATE OF DEATH 1571
Place of death Heidelberg