Paracelsus, a Swiss physician, alchemist, and mystic, whose real name was Theophrastus Bombastus, born at Einsiedeln, in Schwyz; was a violent revolutionary in the medical art, and provoked much hostility, so that he was driven to lead a wandering and unsettled life; notwithstanding, he contributed not a little, by his knowledge and practice, to inaugurate a more scientific study of nature than till his time prevailed (1493-1541).