Philipp Ulstad

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Philipp Ulstad was a patrician from Nuremberg who taught medicine at the Academy in Friborg at the beginning of the 16th century .

He is known for his work Coelum philosophorum seu de secretis naturae liber , mainly based on the Liber de arte distillandi de compositis by Hieronymus Brunschwig , which was printed in Friborg in 1525. A German translation was published in Strasbourg in 1527 and a French translation in Paris in 1546. It contains excerpts from Arnaldus de Villanova , Ramon Llull , Albertus Magnus , and Johannes de Rupescissa . The work experienced numerous editions and was a major work on distillation techniques (including coils with water cooling) in the early modern period. He was particularly influenced by Rupescissa and his doctrine of the fifth essence (but does not consider these as incorruptible as Rupescissa, just far less than the other four elements) and their use in medicine. He distances himself from the philosophical excesses of alchemy and values ​​its techniques, which he wants to make accessible to pharmacists, doctors and other practitioners. He described the extraction of fifth essences from plants, minerals, metals (gold, etc.) and gave hints on medical applications.

He also wrote a small treatise on the plague ( De epidemia tractatus. Basel 1526). Little is known about his life.

literature

  • Martin Fichman: Dictionary of Scientific Biography
  • Edward R. Atkinson, Arthur H. Hughes: The Coelum Philosophorum of Philipp Ulstad. Journal of Chemical Education, 16 (1939) 103-107

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Udo Benzenhöfer : Johannes' de Rupescissa 'Liber de consideratione quintae essentiae omnium rerum' German. Studies on Alchemia medica from the 15th to 17th centuries with a critical edition of the text. Steiner, Stuttgart 1989 (= Heidelberg Studies on Naturopathy of the Early Modern Age, 1), p. 197 f.
personal data
SURNAME Ulstad, Philipp
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Ulstadius, Philip
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German medic and alchemist
DATE OF BIRTH 15th century
DATE OF DEATH 16th Century