Boehme's medicine refuses the rule the schools had taught since Galen, that a hot disease is treated with cold. "The Physician must not give Saturn without Mars in hot Diseases, not Cold without Heat," he writes; the fiery remedy is given, but first tempered with Jupiter and Venus, "that the Wrath of Mars may be changed into Joy". The reason is theological, and it comes four pages on: God did not cure fallen Adam with a strange thing but with the likeness of what had been corrupted in him, the divine Mercury, Venus and Jupiter. The herbal is modelled on the redemption. Like heals like because that is how God healed man, and the chapter's prescriptions repeat that cure in the body.
Jacob Boehme — the works in English
The Signature of All Things — trans. John Ellistone (1651)
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43. But if Mars be next Saturn, and Mercury very weak, and Jupiter also under Mars in the Property, and Venus casts an opposite Aspect or Dissent with its Desire, then it is good; for Jupiter and Venus change the Wrath of Mars into Joy, which produces hot wholesome sovereign Herbs, which are to be used in all hot Diseases and Hurts, the Herb is rough, and somewhat prickly the Leaves on the Branches, so likewise the Stalk is fine and thin, according to the Nature of Venus, but the Virtue and Power is of Mars and Jupiter, well mixed and tempered, commonly with brownish Blossoms forcing forth in the Property, and that because Mars is strong therein with his Wrath; but seeing his Wrath is changed by Jupiter and Venus into a pleasant Property, the Wrath becomes a Desire of Joy.
44. The Physician must not give Saturn without Mars in hot Diseases, not Cold without Heat, else he enkindles Mars in the Wrath, and stirs up Mercury in the hard Impression in the Property of Death; Mars belongs to the Cure of every Mars-like Sickness, which is of Heat, and pricking Pangs: But let the Physician know, that he must first correct and qualify Mars, which he intends to administer, with Jupiter and Venus, that the Wrath of Mars may be changed into Joy, and then, he will also change the Sickness in the Body into Joy; Cold is quite contrary to it.
45. If the Physician administers Saturn only and by itself to a Martial Disease or Hurt, Mars is dismayed with Death, and falls down with his Force and Strength into death's Property; and now seeing he is the Fire in the Body, the Life's Fire becomes thereupon deadly in the Elemental Property; for he soon awakens Mercury in the Property of Cold. But yet the Physician must have a Care that he administers not in an hot Disease the raw undigested hot Mars, in which Mercury is wholly inflamed and burning; for he enkindles the Fire more vehemently in the Body; he must first mollify Mars and Mercury, and put them into Joy, and then it is right and good.
46. The hotter an Herb is, the better it is hereunto; yet its wrathful Fire must be changed into Love, arid then he can also change the Wrath in the Body into Joy, all according as the Property of the Disease is, that the Disease be able to bear it; for to a weak Fire in the Body, which is tired and languished by Reason of the Heat, and rather inclines to Cold, viz. to the Poison of Mercury, where the Life is in Danger, there belongs a Cure with a fine subtil Heat, wherein Venus is strong, and Mars very tender and mild by Reason of the Power of Venus; Jupiter need not be strong there, lest he make Mars and Mercury too strong, so that the weak Life, before it is quickened and refreshed, is overwhelmed, and brought into the Mercurial Poison.
47. An Herb in this aforesaid Property grows not high, it is somewhat rough in the Touch; the rougher it is, the stronger is Mars therein; it is better to be used outwardly to Wounds and Sores, than inwardly: The fine and subtil Part is to be taken into the Body and is expulsive; the more subtil it is, the nigher it is to the Life in the Body, which the Physician may very well know by its Salt; for no rough wild Property is to be taken into the Body, unless the Body be inflamed with a sudden Poison, where the Life also is fresh and strong, then a vehement Resistance must be used; yet Mercury and Mars must not be administered in the Wrath, but in their strongest Power, Mars in the greatest Heat, but before changed into Joy; and then he also changes Mercury according to himself: Jupiter belongs to the Transmutation of wrathful Mars, but he must be first introduced into Sol’s Property, and then he is rightly fit for it.
48. Every living Creature, according to its Kind in the foregoing Property, is friendly and pleasant, if you deal friendly and gently with it, but if it be dealt roughly with, then Mercury is stirred up in the Poison-Property; for Mars soon boils up, and gets aloft in the bitter Property, and then the Anger springs forth; for the Ground of all Malignity lies therein; but if it be not stirred up, then it is not manifest; as a great Sickness which lies in the Body, but while the same is hid, and not enkindled, it is not manifest and apparent.