A Key to Physic, and the Occult Sciences

An ambitious work of philosophy and medical theory, attempting to marry occult understandings of the body with Enlightenment science.

Intended as a companion volume to his bestselling Culpeper's English Physician, Ebenezer Sibly's 1795 work presents the body as a microcosm of all nature, its corruptions a result of imbalanced proportions of the four elements. Sibly draws upon Enlightenment science to try to prove an older, hermetically derived philosophy.Physician, astrologer and occult philosopher, Ebenezer Sibly (1751–99) wrote popular works of medical theory and advice, including Culpeper's English Physician (1789) and this companion volume of 1795. A synthesis of theology, natural philosophy and medical science, the book argues for a microcosmic understanding of the human body as a composite of the four essential elements. An ambitious work, it bears witness to an important era in the development of modern medicine, as Sibly looks to combine an older hermetic tradition with new Enlightenment-era insights into the physical universe. In the final section of the work, Sibly touts his remedies, Lunar Tincture and Solar Tincture, developed to act upon female and male ailments, respectively. Composed from the 'pabulum of the universe', these medicines, Sibly claims, cure everything from gunshot wounds to dog bites.