HELMONT

helmont, jean baptiste van (1577-1644), belgian chemist, physiologist and physician, a member of a noble family, was born at brussels in 1577.[1] he was educated at louvain, and after ranging restlessly from one science to another and finding satisfaction in none, turned to medicine, in which he took his doctor's degree in 1599. the next few years he spent in travelling through switzerland, italy, france and england. returning to his own country he was at antwerp at the time of the great plague in 1605, and having contracted a rich marriage settled in 1609 at vilvorde, near brussels, where he occupied himself with chemical experiments and medical practice until his death on the 30th of december 1644. van helmont presents curious contradictions. on the one hand he was a disciple of paracelsus (though he scornfully repudiates his errors was well as those of most other contemporary authorities), a mystic with strong leanings to the supernatural, an alchemist who believed that with a small piece of the philosopher's stone he had transmuted 2000 times as much mercury into gold; on the other hand he was touched with the new learning that was producing men like harvey, galileo and bacon, a careful observer of nature, and an exact experimenter who in some cases realized that matter can neither be created nor destroyed. as a chemist he deserves to be regarded as the founder of pneumatic chemistry, even though it made no substantial progress for a century after his time, and he was the first to understand that there are gases distinct in kind from atmospheric air. the very word "gas" he claims as his own invention, and he perceived that his "gas sylvestre" (our carbon dioxide) given off by burning charcoal is the same as that produced by fermenting must and that which sometimes renders the air of caves irrespirable. for him air and water are the two primitive elements of things. fire he explicitly denies to be an element, and earth is not one because it can be reduced to water. that plants, for instance, are composed of water he sought to show by the ingenious quantitative experiment of planting a willow weighing 5 lb. in 200 lb. of dry soil and allowing it to grow for five years; at the end of that time it had become a tree weighing 169 lb., and since it had received nothing but water and the soil weighed practically the same as at the beginning, he argued that the increased weight of wood, bark and roots had been formed from water alone. it was an old idea that the processes of the living body are fermentative in character, but he applied it more elaborately than any of his predecessors. for him digestion, nutrition and even movement are due to ferments, which convert dead food into living flesh in six stages. but having got so far with the application of chemical principles to physiological problems, he introduces a complicated system of supernatural agencies like the _archei_ of paracelsus, which preside over and direct the affairs of the body. a central _archeus_ controls a number of subsidiary _archei_ which move through the ferments, and just as diseases are primarily caused by some affection (_exorbitatio_) of the _archeus_, so remedies act by bringing it back to the normal. at the same time chemical principles guided him in the choice of medicines--undue acidity of the digestive juices, for example, was to be corrected by alkalies and _vice versa_; he was thus a forerunner of the iatrochemical school, and did good service to the art of medicine by applying chemical methods to the preparation of drugs. over and above the _archeus_ he taught that there is the sensitive soul which is the husk or shell of the immortal mind. before the fall the _archeus_ obeyed the immortal mind and was directly controlled by it, but at the fall men received also the sensitive soul and with it lost immortality, for when it perishes the immortal mind can no longer remain in the body. in addition to the _archeus_, which he described as "aura vitalis seminum, vitae directrix," van helmont had other governing agencies resembling the _archeus_ and not always clearly distinguished from it. from these he invented the term _blas_, defined as the "vis motus tam alterivi quam localis." of _blas_ there were several kinds, e.g. _blas humanum_ and _blas meteoron_; the heavens he said "constare gas materia et blas efficiente." he was a faithful catholic, but incurred the suspicion of the church by his tract _de magnetica vulnerum curatione_ (1621), which was thought to derogate from some of the miracles. his works were collected and published at amsterdam as _ortus medicinae, vel opera et opuscula omnia_ in 1668 by his son franz mercurius (b. 1618 at vilvorde, d. 1699 at berlin), in whose own writings, e.g. _cabbalah denudata_ (1677) and _opuscula philosophica_ (1690), mystical theosophy and alchemy appear in still wilder confusion. see m. foster, _lectures on the history of physiology_ (1901); also chevreul in _journ. des savants_ (feb. and march 1850), and cap in _journ. pharm. chim._ (1852). other authorities are poultier d'elmoth, _memoire sur j. b. van helmont_ (1817); rixner and sieber, _beitrage zur geschichte der physiologie_ (1819-1826), vol. ii.; spiers, _helmont's system der medicin_ (1840); melsens, _lecons sur van helmont_ (1848); rommelaere, _etudes sur j. b. van helmont_ (1860). footnote: [1] an alternative date for his birth is 1579 and for his death 1635 (see _bull. roy. acad. belg._, 1907, 7, p. 732).