Von den Kranckheyten so die vernunfft berauben als da sein S. Veyts Thantz…

In this work on the “diseases that deprive man of his reason” Paracelsus anticipated the descriptive method in psychiatry, giving a purely medical account of the clinical manifestations of epilepsy, mania, and hysteria refuting previous theories that these diseases were caused by demonic possession or other supernatural means. He was “the first to differentiate the sexual components and the unconcious factors in the development ol hysteria” (Zilboorg). English translation by G. Zilboorg in H.E. Sigerist (ed.), Four treatises of…Paracelsus, Baltimore, 1941.