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Jan Baptist van Helmont.

Jan Baptista van Helmont (January 12, 1577 – December 30, 1644) was a Flemish chemist, physiologist, and physician. Alternative given names for him are given as Jean-Baptiste van Helmont, Johannes Baptista van Helmont, and Joan Baptista van Helmont. He worked during the years just after Paracelsus and iatrochemistry, and is sometimes considered to be "the founder of pneumatic chemistry".^[1] Van Helmont is remembered today largely for his ideas on spontaneous generation, his 5-year tree experiment, and his introduction of the word "gas" into the vocabulary of scientists. This image has been released into the public domain by the copyright holder, its copyright has expired, or it is ineligible for copyright. ... This image has been released into the public domain by the copyright holder, its copyright has expired, or it is ineligible for copyright. ... is the 12th day of the year in the Gregorian calendar. ... Events March 17 - formation of the Cathay Company to send Martin Frobisher back to the New World for more gold May 28 - Publication of the Bergen Book, better known as the Solid Declaration of the Formula of Concord, one of the Lutheran confessional writings. ... is the 364th day of the year (365th in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar. ... // Events February to August - Explorer Abel Tasmans second expedition for the Dutch East India Company maps the north coast of Australia. ... For other uses, see Flanders (disambiguation). ... A chemist pours from a round-bottom flask. ... Physiology (in Greek physis = nature and logos = word) is the study of the mechanical, physical, and biochemical functions of living organisms. ... For other uses, see Doctor. ... Presumed portrait of Paracelsus, attributed to the school of Quentin Matsys. ... Robert Boyles air pump Pneumatic chemistry is a term most-closely identified with an area of scientific research of the seventeenth, eighteenth, and early nineteenth centuries. ...

Life

A member of a noble family, van Helmont was born at Brussels in 1577. 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 traveling through Switzerland, Italy, France, and England. For other places with the same name, see Brussels (disambiguation). ... Events March 17 - formation of the Cathay Company to send Martin Frobisher back to the New World for more gold May 28 - Publication of the Bergen Book, better known as the Solid Declaration of the Formula of Concord, one of the Lutheran confessional writings. ... Geography Country Belgium Community Flemish Community Region Flemish Region Province Flemish Brabant Arrondissement Leuven Coordinates , , Area 56. ... Year 1599 was a common year starting on Friday (link will display the full calendar) of the Gregorian calendar (or a common year starting on Monday of the 10-day slower Julian calendar). ... For other uses, see England (disambiguation). ...

Returning to his own country, van Helmont was at Antwerp at the time of the great plague in 1605, and having contracted a rich marriage settled in 1609 at Vilvoorde, near Brussels, where he occupied himself with chemical experiments and medical practice until his death on the 30th of December 1644. 1605 was a common year starting on Saturday of the Gregorian calendar (or a common year starting on Tuesday of the 10-day slower Julian calendar). ... // Events April 4 – King of Spain signs an edit of expulsion of all moriscos from Spain April 9 – Spain recognizes Dutch independence May 23 - Official ratification of the Second Charter of Virginia. ... Vilvoorde (French: Vilvorde) is a municipality in the province of Flemish Brabant, in Flanders, one of the three regions of Belgium. ...

Work

Van Helmont presented contradictions. On the one hand he was a disciple of Paracelsus (though he scornfully repudiates his errors as 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 based on experiment that was producing men like William Harvey, Galileo Galilei and Francis Bacon. Presumed portrait of Paracelsus, attributed to the school of Quentin Matsys. ... For other uses, see Alchemy (disambiguation). ... For other uses, see Philosophers stone (disambiguation). ... In the scientific method, an experiment (Latin: ex- periri, of (or from) trying) is a set of observations performed in the context of solving a particular problem or question, to support or falsify a hypothesis or research concerning phenomena. ... William Harvey William Harvey (April 1, 1578 – June 3, 1657) was an English medical doctor, who is credited with being the first to correctly describe, in exact detail, the properties of blood being pumped around the body by the heart. ... Galileo redirects here. ... for the painter see Francis Bacon (painter) For other persons named Francis Bacon, see Francis Bacon (disambiguation). ...

Van Helmont deserves to be regarded as the founder of pneumatic chemistry^[2], as he was the first to understand that there are gases distinct in kind from atmospheric air. The very word "gas" he claimed as his own invention, and he perceived that his "gas sylvestre" (carbon dioxide) given off by burning charcoal, was the same as that produced by fermenting must and that which sometimes renders the air of caves unbreathable. Robert Boyles air pump Pneumatic chemistry is a term most-closely identified with an area of scientific research of the seventeenth, eighteenth, and early nineteenth centuries. ... For other uses, see Gas (disambiguation). ... Carbon dioxide is a chemical compound composed of two oxygen atoms covalently bonded to a single carbon atom. ... In its strictest sense fermentation (scientifically called zymosis) is the energy-yielding anaerobic metabolic breakdown of a nutrient molecule, such as glucose, without net oxidation. ... For must meaning compulsion, see wikt:must. ...

For van Helmont, air and water were the two primitive elements. Fire he explicitly denied to be an element, and earth is not one because it can be reduced to water. Look up air in Wiktionary, the free dictionary. ... Impact from a water drop causes an upward rebound jet surrounded by circular capillary waves. ... . Bön . Hinduism (Tattva) and Buddhism (Mahābhūta) Prithvi / Bhumi — Earth Ap / Jala — Water Vayu / Pavan — Air / Wind Agni/Tejas — Fire Akasha — Aether Japanese (Godai) Earth (地) Water (水) Air / Wind (風) Fire (火) Void / Sky / Heaven (空) Chinese (Wu Xing) . Modern Many ancient philosophies used a set of archetypal classical elements to explain...

Van Helmont was a careful observer of nature, and an exact experimenter who in some cases realized that matter can neither be created nor destroyed. He performed an experiment to determine where plants get their mass. He grew a willow tree and meticulously measured the amount of soil, the weight of the tree and the water he added. After five years the plant had gained about 170 pounds. Since the amount of soil was basically the same as it had been when he started his experiment, he deduced that the tree’s weight gain had come from water. 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. “Natural” redirects here. ...

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 alkalines and vice versa; he was thus a forerunner of the iatrochemical school, and did service to medicine by applying chemical methods to the preparation of drugs. The common (Arrhenius) definition of a base is a chemical compound that either donates hydroxide ions or absorbs hydrogen ions when dissolved in water. ...

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 also received the sensitive soul and with it lost immortality, for when it perishes the immortal mind can no longer remain in the body. This article is about the band. ...

In addition to the archeus, which he described as "aura vitalis seminum, vitae directrix", Van Helmont had other governing agencies resembling the archeus which were 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 materiâ 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 in Amsterdam as Ortus medicinae, vel opera et opuscula omnia in 1648^[3] by his son Franz Mercurius van Helmont, in whose own writings (e.g. Cabbaiah Denudata (1677) and Opuscula philosophica (1690)) mystical theosophy and alchemy appear in confusion. Franz Mercurius van Helmont (1614-1699) was the son of Jan Baptiste van Helmont and tutor and friend of Leibnitz, who wrote his epitaph. ...

Van Helmont and digestion

One area on which Van Helmont wrote extensively was the subject of digestion. In Oriatrike or Physics Refined (1662, English translation of Ortus medicinae ...), van Helmont addresses earlier ideas on the subject, such as that food was digested due to the body's internal heat. If such was the case, van Helmont argued, how could cold-blooded animals live? His own opinion was that digestion was aided by a chemical reagent, or "ferment", within the body, such as inside the stomach. Harré suggests that in this way, van Helmont's idea was "very near to our modern concept of an enzyme."^[4] Van Helmont proposed and described six different stages of digestion.^[5]

New portrait discovered

Supposed portrait of Robert Hooke; actually van Helmont.

In 2003, the historian Lisa Jardine claimed a recently discovered portrait represented Robert Hooke. However, Jardine's hypothesis was disproved by William Jensen of the University of Cincinnati and by the German researcher Andreas Pechtl of Johannes Gutenberg University of Mainz^{[citation needed]}. The portrait in fact depicts Jan Baptist van Helmont. Image File history File links HOOKE_Robert. ... Image File history File links HOOKE_Robert. ... Robert Hooke, FRS (July 18, 1635 – March 3, 1703) was an English polymath who played an important role in the scientific revolution, through both experimental and theoretical work. ... Lisa Jardine is a British historian of the early modern period. ... Robert Hooke, FRS (July 18, 1635 – March 3, 1703) was an English polymath who played an important role in the scientific revolution, through both experimental and theoretical work. ... The University of Cincinnati is a coeducational public research university in Cincinnati, Ohio. ... Johannes Gutenberg University of Mainz (Johannes Gutenberg-Universität Mainz) is a university in the city of Mainz, Germany. ...

For further reading

• Redgrove, I. M. L. and Redgrove, H. Stanley (2003). Joannes Baptista van Helmont: Alchemist, Physician and Philosopher, Kessinger Publishing.

• Pagel, Walter (2002). Joan Baptista Van Helmont: Reformer of Science and Medicine, Cambridge University Press.

• The Moldavian prince and scholar, Dimitrie Cantemir, wrote a biography of Helmont, which is now difficult to locate.

Moldavia (Moldova in Romanian) was a Romanian principality, originally created in the Middle Ages, now divided between Romania, Moldovan Republic and Ukraine. ... Dimitrie Cantemir (-Romanian, Дмитрий Кантемир in Russian, Kantemiroğlu in Turkish, Kantymir in Polish), (October 26, 1673 - 1723) was a Moldavian Voivode (Prince; March-April 1693 and 1710-1711), philosopher, historian, composer, linguist and scholar. ...

Notes and references

1. ^ Holmyard, Eric John (1931). Makers of Chemistry. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 121. 
2. ^ Holmyard, Eric John (1931). Makers of Chemistry. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 121. 
3. ^ Partington, J. R. (1951). A Short History of Chemistry. London: Macmillan, 44 – 54. 
4. ^ Harré, Rom (1983). Great Scientific Experiments. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 33 – 35. 
5. ^ Foster, Michael (1970). Lectures on the History of Physiology. New York: Dover Publications, 136 – 144. ; originally published in 1901 by Cambridge University Press

External links

• Identification of a portrait of van Helmont - earlier misidentified as a picture of Robert Hooke.

• Ferguson, John (1906). Johann Baptiste van Helmont, Bibliotheca Chemica: A Catalogue of the Alchemical, Chemical and Pharmaceutical Books in the Collection of the Late James Young of Kelly and Durris, Esq., LL.D., F.R.S., F.R.S.E., Glasgow: James Maclehose and Sons, page 381.

• Moore, F. J. (1918). A History of Chemistry, New York: McGraw-Hill.

• Thomson, Thomas (1830). The History of Chemistry, London: Henry Colburn and Richard Bentley.