The Alchemist's Little Man
A Renaissance doctor wrote that a tiny living person could be grown in a sealed glass flask. Alchemists called it the homunculus.
What was reported
Paracelsus was a Swiss doctor and alchemist of the early 1500s, who taught for a time at Basel, and whose ideas about medicine and chemistry were revolutionary. A book attributed to him, On the Nature of Things, includes a recipe for creating a homunculus, a 'little man'.
Certain substances were to be sealed in a flask and kept warm for forty days, until a tiny, transparent figure formed. It then had to be fed and kept warm for many weeks, and it would grow into a small being with secret knowledge.
Explanations offered
No one has ever made a homunculus. The idea grew from old beliefs about how life begins, before cells and genetics were understood. It became a powerful image in literature, appearing in Goethe's Faust and later in stories about artificial life.
- When
- Described in the 1500s
- Where
- Basel, Switzerland
- Witnesses
- Writings attributed to Paracelsus
- Status
- Legend
Famous cases are real, widely reported events. Each file sets out what witnesses said and the explanations that have been offered, without taking a side.
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