Abstract
JEAN BAPTISTS VAN HELMONT, the great Flemish natural philosopher, died three hundred years ago, at the age of sixty-five, bringing to a close a life embittered by religious persecution, but rich in inward contentment derived from sincere piety and a magnificent record of discoveries and ingenious conceptions in science and medicine. He devised one of the early thermometers. He proposed a reform of tune measurement by the use of the pendulum and devoted much work to the investigation of its laws. He endeavoured to express vital phenomena in chemical terms and thereby became one of the founders of biochemistry. He demonstrated that acid is associated with digestion in the stomach and alkali in the duodenum. He was one of the initiators of modern pathology, which he sought to base on a study of the external agents in relation to local changes in the organs in disease. This led him to a refutation of the "Folly of Catarrh"—the title he gave to one of his treatises—for it was then believed that many diseases were due to a flow of mucus from the brain straight through the base of the skull to all parts of the body, notably to the lungs and joints, causing consumption, rheumatism, pneumonia, gout. He even made practical contributions to clinical medicine, for he examined the specific gravity of urine and demonstrated the presence of carbon dioxide and ferrous oxide in the waters of Spa by means of evaporation.
Article PDF
References
"Acetosum Esurinum." De morb. tartar., cap. 16.
"De simpl. medicam temp.", I, 39; ed. Kuelm. 11, 453.
Partington, J. R., "Jean Baptista Van Helmont", Annals of Science, 1, 359 1936
Partington, loc. cit., p. 368.
Pagel, W., "The Religious and Philosophical Aspects of Van Helmont's Science and Medicine", Supp. Bull. Hist. Med., No. 2 (Baltimore, 1944).
Partington, loc. cit., p. 373, lists fifteen kinds of gas described by Van Helmont and rightly emphasizes the qualitative differences which Van Helmont ascribed to them.
Pagel, W., "Van Helmont De Tempore and the History of the Biological Concept of Time". Isis, 33, 621 (1942).
Metzger, H., "L'Historien des Sciences doit-il se faire le contemporain des savants dont il parle?" Archeion, 15, 34 (1933).
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
PAGEL, W. J. B. Van Helmont (1579–1644). Nature 153, 675–676 (1944). https://doi.org/10.1038/153675a0
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/153675a0