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The essence of the concept of "homunculus"

The alchemists tried to achieve such high goals,about which modern scientists do not dare to dream about it. In one list with a philosophical stone and the transformation of lead into gold, it was the creation of homunculi - creatures like man, but not born, but grown artificially. Although the concept of "homunculus" was spread as far back as the 12th century, this topic became really popular only a century later, when Arnaldus de Villanova, a physician and alchemist from Spain, created the theory of "making" people and, according to rumors, conducted a number of successful experiments, which others had not yet succeeded in. For a long time it was believed that he was the only one who was able to achieve results, but three centuries after the death of Arnaldus Paracelsus supported his idea and even offered his recipe for the cultivation of an artificial man. It was assumed that the homunculus would not just be an artificially grown body or a kind of soulless robot. Alchemists believed that this consciousness will have both feelings and reason, and in general it will become much like a person

How the alchemists tried to create a homunculus

There were several different methods of creatinghomunculi, but almost all of them were based on one idea: the basis for this being must become a sperm, because it is with time that it turns into a man in the womb of his mother. The process of bearing a child to alchemists in the Middle Ages seemed to be akin to the process of growing a homunculus, only they wanted to do without "standard" methods. Moreover, it was assumed that the spermatozoon is a little man, only a tiny one, and in the womb of the mother it only increases in size, no more than one. Paracelsus belongs to one of the most popular recipes for the cultivation of the homunculus. He suggested taking human sperm, heating it up in a test tube in a special way, magnetizing it, digging it into horse manure, and doing a number of other manipulations, most of which were not clear even during the development of this method. Further it was necessary to contain a tube with a homunculus under special conditions, from time to time feeding a little man so that he would grow and develop. He was supposed to be fed with human blood. According to Paracelsus, the result in this case could be achieved in the shortest possible time: a homunculus was enough for 40 days to "mature". By this time, the growth of the creature had to reach about 30.5 cm.