Homunculus

Homunculus is something like a retro-Latin word. The base word homo means human, but the added suffix at the end makes it into a diminutive form.

Basically, you’re describing a little human being, like a micro-sized version of you.

The term was put together centuries after the fall of Rome, long after Latin was in common use in Europe. An alchemist named Paracelsus working in Switzerland used the term in print in De Natura Rerum, published after his death in 1572.

Here, he described how to make a little person by using alchemy. This process is interesting enough for me to carve out some space here. Reasoning that a human incubates inside of a mother for several months, Paracelsus had the idea to place human sperm in a sealed flask.

Then, things get kind of weird. Okay, they get kind of weirder.

Paracelsus suggested burying the flask in a big pile of horse poop. No, this isn’t just an excuse for me to write about poop (this time), but instead, Paracelsus was obsessed with the propertie…