Name at birth: Theophrastus Phillippus Aureolus Bombastus von Hohenheim

Paracelsus is credited with developing a mineral-based chemical approach to human health problems, a radical in his day who is considered elemental in the transition from mystical traditions to modern science. He traveled all over Europe in the 16th century, serving as a surgeon and a professor of medicine, but his unorthodox views and frequent attacks on established methods kept getting him in trouble. His written works are a combination of the Renaissance ideas of the scientific method and a firmly entrenched background in alchemy and the occult.