[Medicine, natural philosophy and magic. Johann Laurentius Bausch from the medical history viewpoint]

The Bausch reception created a double image: On the one hand he is appreciated as the outstanding founder of the Academy (later called Leopoldina) with its most important impact on the history of science, on the other hand he appears as a rather mediocre doctor and natural scientist, an "uninteresting man", whose scientific ideas soon turned out to be obsolete. This contribution tries to illuminate especially the neglected shady side of Bausch. For this purpose, four of his major writings are analysed: the "Apothecken Tax" and the monographs on the blood stone, the eagle stone and the unicorn. Here, the author intended a synopsis as broad as possible; in his opinion, the collecting of historical documents was as valid as own observations and experiments. Although Bausch again and again alludes to ideas of natural philosophy and magic he does not follow a specific doctrine and particularly keeps out of the controversy between galenism and paracelsianism.