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(Pelling & Webster, 1979: 234), as their 'magical' remedies
were deemed unorthodox by the authorities of the College of
the Physicians, and perceived as satanic by the ecclesiastical
authorities. The former thought that the supernatural
effectiveness of women healers’ remedies derived from their
experience rather than from proven doctrines; the latter
believed these magical cures interfered with God’s will and
only succeeded due to the aid of the devil. Unlicensed
practitioners of magical, astrological, and alchemical medicine
all risked being persecuted, as “[e]stablished mechanisms of
care came under pressure in the later sixteenth century in cases
where ecclesiastical authorities were inclined to exercise their
licensing function severely, or to impose sanctions against
magical practices” (234). However, while “[m]agical medicine
and witchcraft were stigmatized as related evils” (234), these
female medical practitioners (or witches) would still have been
admirable in the eyes of Paracelsus, the father of modern
medicine. For in 1527, Paracelsus burned his medical texts and
admitted that he knew nothing except what he had learned
from witches.
12
In terms of their medical efficacy, these witch-healers’
medical practices, unlike those of licensed physicians which
were based on doctrines and texts, were grounded in their own
perceptions and experiences, and thus more empirical. Indeed
their techniques were much closer to those of the
contemporary empirical healer Paracelsus, who also was
associated by the authorities with Satan as a result of his
opposition to the witch-hunts. Paradoxically, even though the
Paracelsian practice of alchemical/magical medicine was
strongly condemned by the medical authorities, “any success
12
We read in Jules Michelet’s
La Sorcière
: “
Quand Paracelse, à Bâle, en 1527,
brûla toute la médecine, il déclara ne savoir rien que ce qu’il apprit des
sorcières
” (1863: x).