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24 décembre 2025
- ISIDORE Id: 10670/1.4280df...
- hal: hal-04855380
- doi: 10.1007/978-3-031-76398-4_3
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Methods of analysis Analysis and chemistry Analytical methods Chemical analysis Analysis methods Analysis and examinationCiter ce document
Didier Kahn et al., « Spagyria, Scheidung, and Spagürlein: The Meanings of Analysis for Paracelsus », HAL SHS (Sciences de l’Homme et de la Société), ID : 10.1007/978-3-031-76398-4_3
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Paracelsus is often lauded for having created a new disciplinary identity for alchemy by basing it on the twin operations of analysis and synthesis. Indeed, his neologism for the field, Spagyria, is often said to express this pairing by embodying the Greek terms for decompounding and compounding (σπάν and ἀγείρειν). The present article disputes both this etymological claim and the underlying belief that Paracelsus had an interest in synthesis that paralleled his very strong promotion of analysis ( Scheidung ). As the authors argue, there is good reason to think that Paracelsus actually modeled the word Spagyria on the early modern Swiss coin that went by the name Spagürlein, Spagürli, or Spagürle. This derivation was appropriate for a discipline based on Scheidung , since the coin was the product of numerous metallurgical processes involving separation. The claim that Spagyria was a fusion of σπάν and ἀγείρειν was actually a product of Paracelsus’s followers, not of the Swiss chymist himself.
