Michael Toxites

Michael Schütz , Latinized Michael Toxites , (born July 19, 1514 in Sterzing , † 1581 in Hagenau ) was a poet , teacher , physician and editor of medical and alchemical writings.

Life

Michael Schütz was born in Sterzing in Tyrol. In Dillingen he attended a Latin school before he went to Tübingen and received his Bachelor of Artium there on September 27, 1532 . In 1535 he continued his studies at the University of Pavia , where he studied medicine. In 1542 he obtained his master's degree in Wittenberg as a student of Philipp Melanchthon . He then went to Bad Urach as a schoolmaster and married there for the first time in 1537. A little later he was accused of having written a diatribe against Duke Ulrich von Württemberg , which Toxites confessed after being interrogated using torture . He had to leave the city and swear never to set foot on Württemberg soil again. He moved with his family to Basel and then on to Strasbourg . There he taught at a grammar school and made a name for himself as a poet, including a poem in praise of the Bishop of Augsburg.

In 1544 he was named poeta laureatus by Emperor Charles V and was thus granted the right to use a coat of arms. He was also appointed Comes Palatinus by the emperor . After resigning as a teacher due to neglect of teaching, Toxites traveled back to Basel, enrolled at the university in 1548 as Rheticus , poeta laureatus and married there for the second time. He found a job as a teacher in the city of Brugg in Aargau and wrote other poems. From 1553 he was financially supported by Count Ottheinrich from the Palatinate . At his court he met various scholars, including the doctor Alexander von Suchten , whose pupil he became. In 1554 he was rehabilitated by a decree by Duke Christoph von Württemberg and was then able to return to Tübingen, where he was appointed professor of rhetoric and poetics in 1556 and received his doctorate in medicine in 1562. In Tübingen he also made the acquaintance of the Paracelsist Gerhard Dorn .

In 1562 or 1563 he stayed in Basel, where he met Adam von Bodenstein , whom he might have already met at Ottheinrich's court. In the following years, both Toxites and Bodenstein distinguished themselves by editing the works of Paracelsus . In 1564 Toxites stayed as a doctor in Strasbourg and set up his own laboratory there, in which he experimented with “antimony”, among other things, probably inspired by Alexander von Suchten. In 1566 he met Johann Huser and motivated him to publish Paracelsian writings. Huser was later to publish the first complete edition of the works of Paracelsus. Until 1578 Toxites was the editor of numerous medical and alchemistic works, including 23 writings of Paracelsus. From 1574 he lived in Hagenau , where he died in 1581.

Works (selection)

• Onomastica II: 1: Philosophicum medicum synonymum ex variis vulgaribusque linguis. 2: Theophrasti Paracelsi, hoc est earum vocum, quarum in scriptis eius solet usus esse ... Strasbourg 1574.

literature

• Norbert Hofmann: The artist faculty at the University of Tübingen 1534–1601. JCB Mohr (Paul Siebeck) Tübingen 1982 (= Contubernium. Contributions to the history of the Eberhard-Karls-Universität Tübingen , 28), p. 111 ff.
• Rudolf Werner Soukup, Helmut Mayer: Alchemistic gold, Paracelsistic pharmaceuticals. Laboratory technology in the 16th century , Vienna 1997.
• Rudolf Werner Soukup: Chemistry in Austria: from the beginnings to the end of the 18th century , Vienna 2007.
• Doris Teichmann: A Czech-German recipe manuscript from the beginning of the 17th century. In: Würzburg medical history reports. Volume 16, 1997, pp. 233-260; here: p. 236 f.
• Karl-Heinz Weimann : Paracelsus Lexicography in Four Centuries. In: Medizinhistorisches Journal 16, 1981, pp. 167-195.

Web links

• Urs Leo Gantenbein: Michael Toxites. In: Historical Lexicon of Switzerland .