[Ethical medicine in Paracelsus]

The last decades have been an increasing interest in medical ethics. Paracelsus occupies an important place in the development of ethics in medicine in the crucial cultural passage between Middle Ages and Renaissance. Paracelsus' biography is in itself connected with ethical choices and theories. In his medical doctrines ethics is rooted in the belief in a strict correspondence between micro- and macrocosmos. Love is the basis on which a correct doctor-patient relationship can be built. Ilnesses are but episodes in the human life, and care for both spiritual and bodily health should dominate the entire life, and not ony the crucial moments of birth, sickness and death.