Paracelsus - The Tria Prima

Paracelsus believed that all material could be broken down into three things, mercury, sulphur and salt. For him, chemical processes provided the fundamental model for explaining natural processes in the physical universe as well as within the human body. His creation of an ordered world out of primordial chaos was akin to the chemist's extraction, purification and elabration of common materials into chemical products. And he no doubt hoped ultimately a substitute for prevailing contemporaneous systems.