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iatrochemical school of thought

a school of thought, active from the early 16th to the mid-17th centuries, which held that disease resulted from chemical imbalances in the body and that, conversely, health and longevity resulted from the proper balance of chemicals. It also held that disease was to be treated chemically and that drugs could be chemically produced. This view was heavily influenced by the work of Swiss chemist and physician Paracelsus (1493–1541) and developed in opposition to the theories of Galen, still prevalent at that time, holding that diseases resulted from an imbalance of bodily humors. The iatrochemical school provided the impetus for the development of modern pharmaceutical laboratories and modern chemotherapy. See also iatrophysical school of thought.

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Psychology term of the day

January 30th 2025

Gödel’s proof

Gödel’s proof

a proof that in any logic system at least as powerful as arithmetic it is possible to state theorems that can be proved to be neither true nor false, using only the proof rules of that system. Published in 1931, this incompleteness result was very challenging to the mathematics of the time. British mathematician Alan Turing (1912–1954), with his proof of the undecidability of the halting problem, extended this result to computation (see Turing machine). [Kurt Gödel (1906–1978), Austrian-born U.S. mathematician]