Medical Definition of Archaeus
1. Term first used by Valentine and later by Paracelsus and van Helmont to denote a spirit that presided over and governed bodily processes. Synonym: archeus. Origin: L. Fr. G. Archaios, chief, leader (05 Mar 2000)
Lexicographical Neighbors of Archaeus
Literary usage of Archaeus
Below you will find example usage of this term as found in modern and/or classical literature:
1. Address to the British Association for the Advancement of Science Delivered by William Robert Grove, British Association for the Advancement of Science (1867)
"and epicycles; in chemistry the philosopher's stone, the elixir vitae, the archaeus
or stomach demon, and phlogiston; in electricity the notion that amber ..."
2. The Lancet-clinic by Mississippi Valley Medical Association, Ohio Valley Medical Association (1908)
"Death is a loss of the archaeus. These teachings had nothing in common with the
... Van Helmont believed in the archaeus of Paracelsus, but he went further. ..."
3. The Great Book of Magical Art, Hindu Magic and East Indian Occultism, Now by Lauron William De Laurence (1915)
"This principle of life is termed by the writer archaeus. ... The archaeus is an
essence that is equally distributed in all parts of the human body, ..."
4. The Growth of Medicine from the Earliest Times to about 1800 by Albert Henry Buck (1917)
"... regarding the physical and psychological processes that take place in the
human being; regarding the distinctions which lie makes between the "archaeus ..."
5. Quiz Questions on the History of Medicine by Thomas Lindsley Bradford (1898)
"There was next lower a perceptive soul, and below that a something which he called
archaeus; then there is also Gas which arose by the influence of the ..."
6. The Popular Science Monthly (1872)
"Van Helmont, who is immortalized by the discovery of the gases, adopted as an
established fact a theory which he founded on the hypothetical " archaeus " or ..."
7. A Beginner's History of Philosophy by Herbert Ernest Cushman (1911)
"When the archaeus is in any way checked by these, there is disease; when the
archaeus has them under control, the man has health. ..."
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