From the book
Nine Books on the Nature of Things
Attributed to Paracelsus · Diotimos Editions · 2026
Browse this book’s lexicon →Meaning
Balsam is invoked both as something the first claimed blood preservation can do without and as an alternative in the second process. Mummia is the comparator that the supposedly preserving quintessence exceeds. The edition explains mummia as a historical medicinal or preservative bodily substance, not merely a wrapped mummy. These distinctions keep a comparison, an ingredient-like preparation and the resulting “balsam of balsams” from becoming one undifferentiated object.
Places to read
- Book 3 · Preservation · Passage 3Latin“melius quam vulgaris Mummia”