There are several things wrong with this quote and the short work it comes from. Ehrenreich and English were writing before most of the modern historical analysis of the early modern witch craze and their methodology and their conclusions have since been mostly rejected. They took a fairly small number of cases where folk healers were targeted in witch hunts and extrapolated an elaborate theory from this limited data set. They concluded that these healers were a threat to the increasingly professional class of doctors with academic medical degrees, so they were particularly targeted in the witch craze as a way of taking control of medicine from these (mostly) women.

This rather neat story appealed to many at the time, since it fitted with the counter-culture ideals of the 1970s and fitted with some feminist ideas about history and patriarchy. Unfortunately, it did not stand up to closer scrutiny. David Harley systematically examined the evidence in his article "Historians as Demonologists: The Myth of the Midwife-Witch" (Social History of Medicine 3 (1990), pp. 1-26.) and found that being a midwife or healer actually decreased the chances of being charged with witchcraft. Many accusations of witchcraft centred on still-births and infant deaths, with the blame for these occurrences being put on the malicious magic of witches. Far from being more likely to be accused of witchcraft, midwives and village healers were more likely to be the accusers, or to be witnesses summoned to support such accusations. In The Witch in History, feminist historian Diane Purkiss writes "midwives were more likely to be found helping witch-hunters" than as victims of their inquiries. The claim that herbalist healers were more represented among those accused of witchcraft was also not borne out by more thorough later archival analysis.

So while Ehrenreich and English's story is appealing and has taken hold in parts of popular culture (e.g. it was boosted by Dan Brown's notoriously bad pseudo historical thriller The Da Vinci Code), it is not well founded in evidence.

Ehrenreich and English themselves have since admitted some of the sources they drew from were less than reliable. The claim about Paracelsus above, for example, seems to be baseless. The phrasing shows the quote is not from Paracelsus himself ("[he] had learned from the Sorceress all he knew") but Ehrenreich and English's pamphlet has no footnotes. So where is this quote from? It seems they got it from Jules Michelet's La Sorcière from 1862. But he gives no source for this anecdote and it is not supported by any of Paracelsus' writings or any saying attributed to him. Like Ehrenreich and English's general thesis, the claim seems highly dubious.

Short answer:

Be wary of intemperate claims, particularly those which seem more a product of a contemporary prejudice than a considered inquiry. "Witches" -- whatever that might mean (as that accusation was more frequently falsely laid than truthful) might well have known something useful; but the blanket suggestion that physicians' and surgeons' knowledge was useless is erroneous hyperbole.

Discussion:

We have physicians and surgeons centuries before the putative talents of these "witches", performing recognizable and medically useful procedures and compounding medications whose efficacy we can validate today as effective antibiotics. They develop surgical instrumentation and accurately diagnose at least some diseases. The best of them have recognizable medical logic-- they can diagnose ailments, and have a reasoned idea of what they can and cannot cure. They start their studies with Galen, and learn more from Arab and Jewish physicians, and then innovate further-- there are occasional signs of some interest in astrology or the magical, but the overwhelming influence is medicine, not wicca.

Let's take as one example John of Arderne (1307-1392) a military surgeon, one of the first Europeans to treat wounds from firearms, and one of the earliest Europeans to describe the use of opiates for medical pain relief. There is no evidence that he learned any of this from witches.

Although it may not be the most charming of topics, John of Arderne is noted for having innovated a treatment for fistula in ano in the 14th century which is very close to what is practiced today. Modern physicians evaluating his work consider it medically well reasoned, practical and recognizably appropriate.

There are three aspects of his surgical technique that mark Arderne as a surgeon in advance of his time and as one of the important figures in the development of surgery in this country. I refer to his surgical cleanliness, his principles of wound treatment, and his method of controlling hemorrhage. Regarding the first two points-surgical cleanliness and wound treatment-he may be said to have developed a rational asepsis. Not only did he advise that the surgeon be soberly dressed, but he mentioned the necessity for cleanliness of the hands-"Have the leech also clean hands and well shaped nails and cleansed from all blackness and filth."

Arderne developed various poultices for cautery, and he innovates a technique to cure the fistula which physicians up to that point, including notables such as De Salicet and Abulcasis had declared incurable, more or less the same technique that is used today. We have no evidence that witches participated in this surgical innovation.

Arderne's understanding of the anatomy with which he is working is practiced, and he is able to distinguish treatable from untreatable diseases; for example he is able to distinguish bowel cancer -- not treatable, a correct assessment given the tools available to him and those ailments which he can treat.

Bubo is an apostem breeding within the anus in the rectum with great hardness but little aching. This I say, before it ulcerates, is nothing else than a hidden cancer, that may not in the beginning of it be known by the sight of the eye, for it is all hidden within the rectum. To that also will ignorant leeches [physician-surgeon] assure the patient, that he has dysentery, that is, the bloody flux, when truly it is not . . . I never saw nor heard of any man that was cured of the bubo of the rectum but I know many that have died of the foresaid illness

We can also note that Arderne uses concoctions with poppy to put patients to sleep, for their comfort in surgery

To provoke sleep. Let the patient be fumigated with the following: R. mallows, chenopodium, solatrum, poppy leaves, lettuce and the infusion of Alder. If this does not succeed, let his head, neck, arms, feet and hands be washed with several sleep compellers such as mandragora, storax or powdered opium placed on the patients' head

We can go centuries farther back in English history to Bald's Leechbook, a medical text from the age of Alfred the Great that describes surgical procedures for cleft palates, and has a recipe for an antibiotic poultice which has recently been reformulated in the laboratory -- a collaboration of a pharmacologists, molecular biologist and a scholar of medieval England-- and the resulting poultice displays very strong antibiotic properties, including against the tough to treat MRSA. There is no evidence from the Leechbook that the advice of witches was required for this 9th century pharmaceutical chemistry.

So does that mean that folk healers -- "witches" or others- knew and contributed nothing? No. But it makes Ehrenreich's claim that physicians had no knowledge and that witches were the only source of anything medically useful must be regarded as unreliable hyperbole.

​

Sources:

Master John of Arderne (1307-1380): a founder of modern surgery.

MILLAR TM. John of Arderne, the father of British proctology. Proc R Soc Med. 1954;47(2):75–84.

Harrison F, Roberts AE, Gabrilska R, Rumbaugh KP, Lee C, Diggle SP. A 1,000-Year-Old Antimicrobial Remedy with Antistaphylococcal Activity. MBio. 2015;6(4):e01129. Published 2015 Aug 11. doi:10.1128/mBio.01129-15

Cameron, M. L., Anglo-Saxon Medicine, Cambridge Studies in Anglo-Saxon England 7, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1993

JONES, IDA B. “POPULAR MEDICAL KNOWLEDGE IN FOURTEENTH CENTURY ENGLISH LITERATURE.” Bulletin of the Institute of the History of Medicine, vol. 5, no. 6, 1937, pp. 538–588. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/44438312.

DeVries, Kelly R. "Military Surgical Practice and the Advent of Gunpowder Weaponry". CBMH/BCHM l Volume 7: 1990 1 p. 131-4

Well, it’s a bombastic claim. So as with all claims like this: some of it is true, some is false; but generally it’s an oversimplification. The book from which this comes is now a foundational text in 1970’s feminist revisionist history regarding witchcraft. It’s not entirely wrong, but it is quite out of date now, and I think scholars today would all agree (at least on this), that the issue of why certain people were targeted as witches doesn’t have a single explanation; that there are many reasons why people were targeted.

So let’s add in a little nuance. Who would you go to in the middle ages in Europe if you needed healing? Well there were multiple options: you had priests, monks, doctors, surgeons, barbers, alchemists, apothecaries, herbalists, white magicians, and black magicians...these last two/three/four are called “cunning folk” in Britain. There’s only one problem with this break-down, and that’s that each “category” was blended into each other...such that, alchemists knew herbal medicine, white magicians knew prayers, and most remarkably some priests were practicing black magicians, particularly necromancers (see that chapter in Kieckhefer’s “Magic in the Middle Ages”). There was a particular cleft in medieval healing professions between those who used “traditional practices”, such as potion-makers, herbalists, and folk healers; being opposed to those who used “academic practices”, such as priests, doctors, and surgeons. But during the middle ages along with the rise of literacy, these two professional magisteria would blend together.

So let’s pick this apart piece by piece: did magicians have an “extensive understanding” of bones? No, there were families of bone-setters who you would go to if you needed that work done. If we’re talking about a “scientific understanding of bones”, then also no, because 16th century doctors such as A. Vesalius and surgeons such as A. Pare would produce the most advanced texts on their subjects during the period. More advanced than the practical understanding of an unschooled magician. Although surgical texts with reasonable realistic detail existed during the middle ages, and these could’ve been read by a folk healer; as these “professions” were all blended.

Secondly, did magicians have an “extensive understanding” of muscles? Yes, from a medicinal standpoint, medieval folk healers used massage in a medicinal and therapeutic manner which is sadly not recorded; but was better used than their other medicinal professionals of the period. That is, until A. Pare in the 16th century who included medical massage back into European medical texts. Although if we’re talking about a “scientific understanding of muscles” then no, surgeons would’ve known more.

So did magicians understand “herbs and drugs”? Well certainly, although you would go to an apothecary or alchemist for a “drug”. There were some herbs that worked, and others that didn’t; but I share the opinion of the other commenter that I’d rather be treated by an herbalist during this period than a surgeon! Herbalists did use pain-relievers during this period, such as willow bark tea; which was easier for the body to handle than pain relief used by surgeons like alcohol.

Thirdly, the quote continues, disparagingly saying “physicians used astrology”, and “alchemists tried impossible tasks”, and while these anecdotes are technically true, it’s a gross over-simplification. Physicians used astrology as much as everyone else; and while alchemists did attempt impossible tasks, they also discovered chemical properties (along with spurring the invention of distillation technology).

Fourthly, Paracelsus did burn medical texts in 1527. He burned the popular medical texts of the day, being Avicenna and Galen. Why? Because he was a strong-headed independent researcher who was obsessed with his conviction that his personal method was better than all other methods he had encountered in academia. He wanted to buck the system, and this public display was certainly unrelated to a “sorceress who taught him all he knew”. That line comes from Jules Michelet’s "The Sorceress", and I think it was invented by that author.

A few references -

1 Witch Trials in Context: From Feminism to the Witch Cult Hypothesis, interview with Gordon Napier 2 The Instruments of the Bonesetter, Phillips & Biant 3 Massage Therapy by Susan G. Salvo, chapter 1, History of Massage Therapy 4 Paracelsus: Herald of Modern Toxicology, Joseph F. Borzelleca 5 Anatomy and Surgery in Europe and the Middle East during the Middle Ages, P. D. Mitchell 6 A Brief History of Medieval Magic, Hetta Howes

And a few more references not cited in these paragraphs, but related…

7 Witchcraft, interview with Suzannah Lipscomb 8 Witches, Psychiatrists, and Evangelicals, by Tanya Luhrmann 9 Witchcraft before Wicca: The Cunning Men and Wise-Women of Old, by Michael Howard 10 Why are women accused of witchcraft? Study in rural China gives clue 11 The Secrets of Alchemy: Rethinking the Scientific Revolution, Walter F Rowe 12 They Called Me Mad, History of Mad Scientists, John Monahan

I absolutely love “Magic in the Middle Ages” by Richard Kieckhefer, it certainly has much to bear on this question.

Not having read the book makes me uncertain of the time period in which these witches would've developed this understanding (if you would like to specify a period I would be happy to edit my response). I will base my response on the 15th century seeing as how that's when they attribute that quote to Paracelsus.

The claim is invalid for many reasons and I will show the many contributions of many different physicians of the 1500s.
 

Many notable advances in medicine can be traced to the 1500s but I felt particularly (and I must say personally) aggravated by the omission one of the greatest physicians that ever lived : Andries van Wesel better know by his latinized name Andreas Vesalius (1514-1564).

Vesalius is rightfully part of the Pantheon of Medicine along with the likes of Hippocrates and Osler. His anatomical studies compiled and published in "De Humani Corporis Fabrica" (1543) This seven volume book broke with the Galenic tradition and described Human Anatomy in detail. The book was the product of Vesalius dissections and it was illustrated (which was groundbreaking at the time). It contains over 700 (!) pages which made it unwieldy to transport and thus the "Epitome" was created. The Epitome was only 49 pages and it contained an abridged version of the Fabrica. (1)

Other notable physicians of that century and their discoveries include:

• Theophrastus von Hohenheim AKA Paracelsus (1483-1541) - Whose major contribution can be sumed up as "Only the dose makes the poison". (2)

• Ambroise Paré (1510–1590) who reintroduced arterial ligation among many other surgical techniques in contra position to the commonly held practice of cauterization with boiling oil(3).

• William Harvey - (1578-1657) Born in the later part of the century and published his works on the 17th century but felt like a worthy inclusion. Discovered the physiology of circulation (4)

Reference

1. Vesalius, Andreae. "De humani corporis fabrica." (1543)

2. Bathodius, Lucas. De Natura Rerum, IX Bücher. Ph. Theophrasti von Hohenheim, genant Paracelsi. Jobin.

3. Paré, Ambroise. Les oeuvres d'Ambroise Paré... chez Pierre Rigaud, 1962.

4. Harvey, William. "Exercitatio anatomica de motu cordis et sanguinis in animalibus." Frankfurt am Main 1628

In an addition to great responses by u/Antiquarianism and u/amp1212, I would like to address the question of the medical knowledge existing in the Middle Ages.

The concept that the 'medical professionals' i.e. people with official education and training in a profession of a physician were following a haphazard mixture of superstition and misguided, dogmatic science while usually illiterate 'folk doctors' had, by necessity, resort to use of various herbs or techniques and then, by observation and elimination, spot those that actually worked (what more or less summarizes the basics of a scientific method) is not exactly true. As already said, medical knowledge used together with magical beliefs were typical to ancients who were visiting doctors and making offerings to Asclepios, medieval doctors who were consulting medical books and astrology charts to find the optimal moment for starting treatment and the folk doctors who were using their practical knowledge of herbs and human body with common magical practices, as evidenced by ethnologists doing research even as late as early 20th century.

Statement that the usage of herbs and other natural ingredients was limited to 'witches' or even 'folk doctors' is blatantly false. Research into what we would call herbalism and protopharmaceutics is an ancient phenomenon that produced many popular treatises commonly used by people learning medicine in universities or monasteries. One of the most influential herbary containing both botanical and medical information was De materia medica written by Pedanius Dioscurides in 1st century CE and commonly copied for the next fifteen centuries, with the oldest preserved specimen dating back to the second decade of 6th century, while the notes found inside give a strong assumption that it has been used by Moses Hamon, personal physician of Suleiman the Magnificent (1494-1566). This particular version contains the miniatures of 352 plants, being the most comprehensive herbary available to medieval doctors. Various copies of this book sometimes contain miniatures showing plant in slightly different shapes or development stadia, meaning that the illuminators must have been portraying the plants from nature, depicting varieties indigineous to the place of publication. Another popular herbary, most likely based on De materia medica was Herbarium Apuleii Platonici written by an unknown author prior to 6th century. The idea of 'herbarium vivum' (living herbary) or the book in which text is accompanied not by an illustration but an actual dried specimen have most likely not existed in the Middle Ages, and the oldest known book of that kind has been made in mid-16th century by Gherardo Cibo (1512-1600).

The Greek and Roman traditions nonwithstanding, medieval doctors were also using the knowledge of their Arabic colleagues. One of the most important, although rarely mentioned result of the contacts with Arabic texts was the access to the Indian and, to lesser extent, also Chinese medicine, that was otherwise unfeasible due to lack of direct contact between inhabitants of Europe and Asians. It is evident in Kitab al-saydala fi al-thibb (Book on herbs and medicine) written by Abu ibn Ahmad al-Biruni or Kitab al-jamie li-mufradat al'adwiat w-al'aghdhia (Dictionary of medications and comestibles) or Tafsir kitab Diyasquridus (Commentary on Dioscurides) by Diya ibn Ahmad al-Malaqi, also known as Ibn al-Baytar, an Andalusian physician living in 13th century. The best known Arabic book on medicine is, however, Qanun fi al-thibb or 'Canon of Medicine' composed by Persian scholar Abu Ali ibn Sina, also known as Avicenna (980-1037) and made available in Europe in late 12th century after its translation by Gerhard of Cremona or possibly Gerhard of Sabionetta (also known as Gerhard of Cremona, hence the confusion) . It should also be noted that, although doctors were not allowed to perform human dissections, they could have an access to the results of autopsies thanks to the works of Ala al-din ibn Abi-Hazm al-Qarshi al-Dimashqi, also known as Ibn al-Nafis (1210-1288). This Arab scholar was known to perform autopsies that allowed him to challenge Galen's theory about the structure of human heart (Galen assumed that the chambers are connected, like in case of reptiles) and correctly found out that the blood pumped by heart is saturated by air in lungs, pulse is the result of heartbeat and the brain is the source of thoughts and emotion. In one of his books he comments on 'Epidemics' part of the Hippocratic Corpus proposing a method of finding the origin of the epidemic. His research will be used six centuries later by John Snow who pinpointed the outbreaks of cholera in 19th century London to the contaminated water from a specific part of Thames. Although books of al-Nafis were not translated into any European language, they were most likely known among Arab and Jewish doctors who could have read them in original Arabic.

When it comes to more mundane things like wound and fracture treatment, it should be noted that the ancient literature on that topics is quite comprehensive, not only because one of the most influential ancient physicians, Galenus, worked for some time in a ludus (gladiatorial school) where he had a lot of opportunities to analyze and treat various combat-related issues. Another important book containing similar knowledge would be De medicina by Aulus Cornelius Celsus (25 BCE - around 50 CE). This was quickly enriched by the folk medicine has been developing since prehistory and thus existed the areas of Europe that were not influenced by Greece of Rome and where people had their own remedies developed by the local specialists. Many of the medieval doctors were not above merging such knowledge with that found in ancient texts, with the most famous of them being Saint Hildegard of Bingen who does so in her Causae et curae. Thanks to this syncretic approach and pretty much quick results, the knowledge of wound treatment and surgical procedures was quite well-developed in the medieval Europe. Doctors in Salerno were already formulating comprehensive procedures as early as 9th century, what eventually resulted in complex achievements of John of Arderne, already mentioned in this thread and John Bradmore, physician to Henry V who have shown a great understanding of surgical procedure, antiseptics and use of modern tools I mentioned some time ago in this thread.

As a final remark, I would like to note that one the important things that we need to have in mind while perusing the historical account of medical procedures and recommendations is that pre-modern doctors, with no access to complex biological knowledge, were unable to extrapolate specific observation to more general mechanisms. A good example is a recorded recommendation Johannes Theodorus made for Konrad von Jungingen (1355-1407), the Grand Master of the Teutonic Order, when he said that the Grand Master should avoid hazelnuts, pork, beef, game or undiluted wine and eat prunes every day. He also recommended avoiding eating internal organs with the exception of liver. These might seem strange, but the are surprisingly compliant with the modern recommendations for the chronic nephritis and nephrolithiasis, e.g. decreased intake of proteins (especially creatine) and alcohol, with the increased intake of fiber to alleviate constipation. Mention of the specific products, like hazelnuts or prunes, instead of 'nuts' or 'dried fruits' was most likely cause by the fact that this particular food was commonly available in the area and thus were most commonly consumed. And the absolute kicker is the recommendation of Nicolas Birghayn, another doctor tending to Konrad von Jungingen. He told his patient to often drink goat's blood. It looks like a haphazard recipe based on humour theory or similar dogmatic medicinal book, until one notices that the experiments conducted in 1995 and involving administration of goat immunoglobulin IgC (present in blood) significantly reduced proteinuria (presence of proteins in urine, a common symptom of kidney malfunction) in rats, with a chance that similar reaction may be observed also in humans. It could have been a coincidence or a lucky guess but it could have also be a result of consulting medical books containing knowledge from India, where goat blood was (and still is), used as a main ingredient of rakti, dish eaten since antiquity.