The Paracelsus Database THEO
About THEO
As part of a digitization project, the searchable database THEO aims to make available the works of the physician, natural philosopher and radical theologian Theophrastus Bombast of Hohenheim (1493-1541), called Paracelsus. The texts are based on the editions of Johannes Huser (Basel 1589-1591, Strassbourg 1605) and Karl Sudhoff (Munich 1922-1933). In a later phase the theological works of Paracelsus and the complete works of Jakob Boehme will probably also be included. Once completed, THEO will be an indispensable tool for every researcher in the fields of German language and literature studies and especially Paracelsus studies.
The THEO database is a joint project of Didier Kahn (Centre d’étude de la langue et des littératures françaises CELLF, Sorbonne University, Paris, and Centre national de la recherche scientifique CNRS, France) and Urs Leo Gantenbein (Zurich Paracelsus Project, University of Zurich, Switzerland). In the last years Gantenbein had developed an OCR software with the same name THEO, which was mainly designed for the digitization of the Sudhoff Edition. Kahn then brought in WordPro from Pondicherry, India, a company specializing in the digitization of ancient texts. This permitted to efficiently digitize the historically and philologically more valuable Huser Edition. Finally, Gantenbein developed the THEO web page to enable comprehensive browse and search options.
We would like to thank our sponsors, the Theophrastus Stiftung, Mühltal, Germany, who made possible the digitization through WordPro, and the medica Laboratorien Dr. Franz Käppeli AG, Zurich, who also significantly support the activities of the Zurich Paracelsus Project.