[Medical history and ethics. In memoriam Rolf Winau (1937-2006)]. / Medizingeschichte und Ethik. Zum Gedenken an Rolf Winau (1937-2006).

The paper contributes to the discussion on the self-image of the institutionalized medical history at the medical schools in Germany. Influenced by the curriculum of the new licence to practice medicine (Approbationsordnung für Arzte) containing a so-called cross-section (Querschnittsbereich) "history, theory, ethics of medicine", the scientific community is to a certain extent rather prone to assume clear cut different disciplines--especially medical history versus medical ethics--than to consider overlapping and almost inseparable fields of work with corresponding implications. The author supports the latter approach and advocates the appreciation of the "subjective factor" in regard to teaching granting an ample scope for the individual teacher.

[Medical anthropology in academies: on the criticism of natural science medicine exemplified by Viktor von Weizsäcker]. / Medizinische Anthropologie in Akademien: Zur Kritik der naturwissenschaftlichen Medizin am Beispiel Viktor von Weizsäckers.

Viktor von Weizsäcker (1886-1957) founded his concept of medical anthropology as a clinician educated in internal medicine and neurology. He tried to broaden natural scientific medicine psychosomatically focussing on the "sick human". The natural scientific approach would exclude subjectivity, and therefore he propagated the "introduction of the subject' (Einführung des Subjekts) into the life sciences. His own sensory physiological experiments and Sigmund Freud's psychoanalysis inspired him essentially since the 1920s. In his main work Der Gestaltkreis (gestalt circle) published in 1940 he stressed the "entity of perceiving and moving" (Einheit von Wahrnehmen und Bewegen) in regard to relevant aspects of medicine. In 1932, Weizsäcker became a member of the Heidelberg Academy of Sciences, whose president he was from 1947 till 1949; 1942 he became a member of the Leopoldina. Primarily his merits as a neurologist were highly appreciated. His medical anthropology was not relevant for his election by the two academies. Nevertheless, there was a certain repudiation against the objectivistic and materialistic Weltanschauung within the scientific community. So, Paracelsus and Goethe were highly estimated as natural philosophical guides for own conceptions. This was especially evident for the circle around Wilhelm Troll and Karl Lothar Wolf in Halle, both members of the Leopoldina, who were fascinated by Goethe's concept of "Gestalt". Weizsäcker's lecture on "Gestalt und Zeit" in Halle in 1942 fitted in the concept of those natural scientists.

[Magician nature and human magician: on a fundamental analogy of alchemy]. / Magierin Natur und Magier Mensch: Zu einer fundamentalen Analogiebildung der Alchemie.

This contribution discusses Paracelsism-influenced early-modern alchemy. There are notably two forms of analogy, each hierarchically arranged: a vertically ordered analogy ("as above, thus below") in which Nature is situated as mediator between God and man, and a horizontally ordered analogy ("as without, thus within") in which Nature's magic is regarded as a model for man, particularly expressed in the metaphor of "Vulcan" (smith) and doctor (e.g., Nature as inner healer). In alchemy the conventional "healing power of Nature" is pin-pointed: The doctor (as alchemist, magician) must unravel Nature's secrets and emulate her magic to perfect her work -particularly medicine production. Diagrams and historical depictions illustrate this.

[Medicine, natural philosophy and magic. Johann Laurentius Bausch from the medical history viewpoint]. / Medizin, Naturphilosophie und Magie. Johann Laurentius Bausch aus medizinhistorischer Sicht.

The Bausch reception created a double image: On the one hand he is appreciated as the outstanding founder of the Academy (later called Leopoldina) with its most important impact on the history of science, on the other hand he appears as a rather mediocre doctor and natural scientist, an "uninteresting man", whose scientific ideas soon turned out to be obsolete. This contribution tries to illuminate especially the neglected shady side of Bausch. For this purpose, four of his major writings are analysed: the "Apothecken Tax" and the monographs on the blood stone, the eagle stone and the unicorn. Here, the author intended a synopsis as broad as possible; in his opinion, the collecting of historical documents was as valid as own observations and experiments. Although Bausch again and again alludes to ideas of natural philosophy and magic he does not follow a specific doctrine and particularly keeps out of the controversy between galenism and paracelsianism.

[The role of imagination in modern medicine]. / Imagination - Einbildungskraft - Suggestion: Zur 'Scharlatanerie' in der neuzeitlichen Medizin.

In Renaissance and early modern times, the concept of imagination (Latin imaginatio) was essential for the (natural) philosophical explanation of magic processes, especially in the anthropology of Paracelsus. He assumed that imagination was a natural vital power including cosmic, mental, phychical, and physical dimensions. The Paracelsians criticized traditional humor pathology ignoring their theory of' 'natural magic'. On the other hand, they were criticized by their adversaries as charlatans practicing 'black magic'. About 1800, in between enlightenment and romanticism, the healing concept of, animal magnetism' (Mesmerism) evoked an analogous debate, whether, magnetic' phenomena originated from a real (physical) power (so-called, fluidum') or were just due to fantasy or imagination (German Einbildungskraft). At the end of the 19th century, the French internist Hippolyte Bernheim created-against the background of medical hypnosis (hypnotism') as a consequence of Mesmerism - his theory of suggestion and autosuggestion: a new paradigm of psychological respectively psychosomatic medicine, which became the basis for the concept of, placebo' in modern biomedicine. From now on, all the effects of, alternative medicine' could easily be explained by the, placebo-effect', more or less founded - at least unconsciously - on fraud.