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PHILOSOPHER
By
H. STANLEY REDG!10VE
I M, L. REDGROVE
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JOANNES BAPTISTA
VAN HELMONT
WORKS BY H. STANLEY REDGROVE,
B.Sc. (Lond.), F.C.S.
ON THE CALGULATION OF THERMO -CHEMICAL CON-
STANTS. (Arnold, 1909, 6s. net.)
MATTER, SPIRIT AND THE COSMOS : Some SuGGESTiONa
TOWAKDS A BETTER UNDERSTANDING OF THE WHENCE AND
Why of their Existence. (First published 1910. Popular
Edition, Rider, 1916, Is. net.)
ALCHEMY : ANCIENT AND MODERN, Being a Brief
Account of the Alchemistic Doctrines and their Rela-
tions, to Mysticism on the one hand, and to Recent
Discoveries in Physical Science on the other Hand ;
together with some Particulars regarding the Lives
and Teachings of the most noted Alchemists. (First
published 1911. Second and Revised Edition, Rider, 1922,
7s. 6d. net.)
A MATHEMATICAL THEORY OF SPIRIT. Being an Attempt
TO EMPLOY CERTAIN MATHEMATICAL PRINCIPLES IN THE
Elucidation of some Metaphysical Problems. (Rider,
1912, 2s. 6d. net.)
EXPERIMENTAL MENSURATION. An Elementary Text-
book OF Inductive Geometry. (Heinemann, 1912, 2s. 6d.
net.)
THE MAGIC OF EXPERIENCE. A Contribution to the
Theory of Knowledge. (With an Introduction by Sir
WiUiam F. Barrett, F.R.S.) (Dent, 1915, out of print.)
BYGONE BELIEFS. A Series of Excursions in the Byways
OF Thought. (Rider, 1920, 10s. 6d. net.)
PURPOSE AND TRANSCENDENTALISM. AN Exposition
OF Swedenborg's Philosophical Doctrines in Relation
TO Modern Thought. (Kegan Paul, 1920, 5s, net.)
ROGER BACON, THE FATHER OF EXPERIMENTAL
SCIENCE, AND Medieval Occultism. (Rider, 1920, Is. 6d.
net.)
INDUSTRIAL GASES, TOGETHER WITH THE LIQUEFAC-
TION OF GASES. By various authors, including H. S.
Redgrove. (Crosby Lockwood, Second Impression, 1918,
9s. net.)
THE INDICTMENT OF WAR. An Anthology. Compiled
by H. S. Redgrove and J. H. Rowbottom. (Daniel, 1919,
10s. 6d. net.)
JOSEPH GLANVILL AND PSYCHICAL RESEARCH IN THE
SEVENTEENTH CENTURY. By H. S. Redgrove and
I. M. L. Redgrove. (Rider, 192X, 2s. net.)
Digitized by tine Internet Arciiive
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JOANNES BAPTISTA VAN HELMONT.
Prom a portrait engraved by Johanu Alexander Boener.
{131/ Icind permission of the Bihliothique Naiionale^ Paris.
Photograph by J/. Lcmare, Paris.)
HE/
JOANNES BAPTISTA
VAN HELMONT
ALCHEMIST, PHYSICIAN AND
PHILOSOPHER
V^ BY
H. STANLEY REDGROVE, B.Sc.(Lond.),F.c.s.
AND
L M. L. REDGROVE
AUTHORS OF
"JOSEPH GLANVILL AND PSYCHICAL RESEARCH IN THE
SEVENTEENTH CENTURY "
WITH FRONTISPIECE PORTRAIT
LONDON
WILLIAM .RIDER & SON, LTD.
8.n PATERNOSTER ROW, E.C.
1922
c, J i:
■Aq.
1FD1CAL CENTEK
CONTENTS
CHAPTER I
PAGE
The Paracelsian Reformation of Medi-
cine 7
CHAPTER II
Van Helmont's own Account of his
Early Life and Studies . . .12
CHAPTER III
Travels and Trials . . . .24
CHAPTER IV
Mysticism and Magic
(a) Epistemology
(6) Ontology .
(c) Psychology
{d) The Power of Magnetism
37
37
41
43
46
CONTENTS
CHAPTER V
PAGE
Alchemical Achievements . . .62
(a) Researches on Gases . . .52
(b) Researches on Conservation . 56
(c) The First Matter . . .57
{d) The Transmutation of Metals . 59
CHAPTER VI
The Advancement of the Healing Art . 65
(a) Physiology . . . .65
(b) Pathology . . . . .73
(c) Therapeutics . . . .79
{d) The Elixir of Life . . .83
JOANNES BAPTISTA VAN
HELMONT
CHAPTER I
THE PARACELSIAN REFORMATION OF MEDICINE
In the early part of the sixteenth century there
began to be accompHshed in the world of medicine
a revolution in many ways similar to that which
was taking place at the same time in the domain
of reUgion and theology, and with results not
less {nay, perhaps even more) beneficial to
posterity. Just as the forces which achieved
the reformation of the Church came to a focus
and found effectual expression in the work of
one man, to wit Martin Luther, so, too, did those
which accomplished the reformation of medicine.
Their focal point was the master-mind of Para-
celsus (1493-1541). In the past — throughout the
later Mddle Ages — ^thought had been based on
authority and fettered by tradition ; and, just
as none dared question the teaching of Aristotle
in philosophy, so none dared question that of
Galen and Avicenna in medicine. Truly, these
men were three of the world's master minds,
and their works are permanent monuments to
the majesty of man's thought. But not by bhnd
7
8 JOANNES BAPTISTA VAN HELMONT
reliance on the work of the past was the conquest
of Nature by man to be achieved. Philosophy-
had stagnated into scholasticism ; the state of
medicine was similar, and a revolution was
necessary if progress was ever to be made.
Strictly speaking, there was no science of
chemistry in the modern meaning of the term
prior to the time of Robert Boyle (1626-1691),
who first defined a chemical element as it is
now understood. But, in the wider meaning of
the term, chemistry goes back to preliistoric
times, and we may with a fair degree of accuracy
divide its history into four periods, the third
of which Paracelsus initiated. Chemistry and
medicine necessarily have always been and must
always remain in close association. Paracelsus
fused them into a whole, to the benefit of both.
In its earhest days chemistry was purely techno-
logical : the term may be taken to cover such
crafts as those of the smelter, the dyer and the
pharmacist. The second period of its history
was that of alchemy,^ when, under the impetus
of a mystical theory of the Universe, which
likened the metals to man and accepted analogy
as its guiding light, men sought for the Philo-
sopher's Stone, which would endow them with
youth and transmute all base metals into gold,
thus achieving in the physiological and minera-
logical worlds a work analogous to that of the
spirit of Christ in the heart of man. Under this
1 For a full account of alchemy in all its bearings see
H. S. Redgrove's Alchemy : Ancient and Modern (Second
Edition, London, 1922), and Bygone Beliefs (London, 1920).
REFORMATION OF MEDICINE 9
impetus much experimental work of a chemical
natm^e was done, and many valuable discoveries
were made, but on the whole the alchemical
hypothesis tended rather to circumscribe the
sphere of chemical research and to hmit its out-
look and aims.
Paracelsus taught that the primary object
of chemistry was the preparation of drugs —
their purification and the discovery of new ones.
His theory of the three principles — salt, sulphur
and mercury — ^which he beheved to be present
in all things, good health in man being due to
their right proportion, disease to their dispro-
portion, does not seem to the modern mind
very different from Galen's doctrine of four
humours corresponding to the four AristoteHan
elements, namely, blood, corresponding to air,
phlegm to water, choler to fire and black choler
to earth, which, according to him, cause sickness
and health in much the same way. But the
difference of vital and supreme importance was
that his theory led Paracelsus to seek for chemical
remedies. Galen was content with herbs and
minerals in their crude state ; Paracelsus sought
to purify them and to extract their quintessence.
Both as a teacher and as a physician, Paracelsus,
in spite of most vigorous opposition, was remark-
ably successful. His followers, that is to say,
those who believed in the union of chemistry
and medicine and approached the science in the
free Paracelsian spirit, without necessarily accept-
ing all Paracelsus's peculiar doctrines — some of
which are very fantastic — are usually known as
10 JOANNES BAPTISTA VAN HELMONT
the iatro-chemists, and their work constitutes
the third period in the history of chemistry.
But it must not, however, be supposed that,
because a new impetus had been given to chemical
research, the doctrines of alchemy were dis-
carded. Practically all the iatro-chemists, in-
cluding Paracelsus himself, believed in the
possibility of transmutation. Many of them
essayed to achieve it, and two or three claimed
to have been successful. During the century
and a half which separates Paracelsus from
Boyle, both chemistry and medicine made
rapid progress, and their union strengthened
both of them. Thenceforward it became possible
for each science to travel along its own path
towards its own individual perfection.
Of the iatro-chemists there is none greater
than Joannes Baptista van Helmont, who may
justly be termed the greatest chemist of his
own, or of any preceding, age. Writing of him,
Professor E. von Meyer remarks that he was —
" One of the most eminent and independent
chemists of his time. Endowed with rich acquire-
ments and experiences in medicine and chemistry,
he surpassed those of his contemporaries who
laboured in the same field ... he fought against
the old medical system, and materially contri-
buted by his brilliant services in bringing about
its fall. Without van Helmont, iatro-chemis-
try would never have attained to the height
to which it was subsequently raised by Sylvius
and Tachenius. In addition, he enriched pure
REFORMATION OP MEDICINE 11
chemistry by a very great number of valuable
observations." ^
Dr. J. A. Mandon, who is equally competent
to judge, WT-ites concerning him :
"J. B. van Helmont was the greatest figure
in medicine of modern times. He reminds us of
both Hippocrates and Aristotle. Medicine never
had so penetrating an observer nor so profound
a thinker." ^
But van Helmont was not only a chemist and
physician, he was also a pliilosopher and mystic —
in the widest sense of the term, a man of wisdom.
Moreover, it is interesting to note, he was not
merely an alchemist, but one of those who
claimed to have carried out the transmutation
of base metal into gold. His hfe is interesting,
not only because the hfe of every great man is
interesting, but because it shows us — as do the
lives of so many of the martyrs of science — ^the
conflict of hght with darkness, of free enquiry
with tradition, of truth with dogmatism, of love
with hate.
1 Ernst von Meyer : A History of Chemistry from Earliest
Times to the Present Day. Trans, by George McGowan
(Third Edition, London, 1906), pp. 80 and 81.
2 J. A. Mandon : " J. B. van Helmont, sa Biographie,"
etc., Memoires des Concours et des Savants etrangers, publies
par VAcademie Royale de Medecine de Belgique, tome vi
(Bruxelles, 1866), p. 555.
CHAPTER II
VAN HELMONT'S own ACCOUNT OF HIS EARLY LIFE
AND STUDIES
Joannes ^ Baptist a van Helmont was born in
Brussels in 1577. He was the j^oungest child
of his parents, and through his mother, Marie
de Stassart, was descended from one of the
most illustrious families of Brabant. During his^
lifetime he published few works, but upon his
death, the main body of his writings was pub-
lished by his youngest son, Franciscus Mercurius
van Helmont, under the title of Ortus Medicince
(Amsterdam, 1648)."^ This book was translated
into Enghsh by John Chandler, under the title
of Oriatrike, or Physic Refined, and was pubhshed
in London in 1662, being reissued in 1664 with
the new name of Van Helmonfs Workes. It
1 Or, Jan.
2 It was reissued several times. Mention may here be
made of three early works by van Helmont, which were
discovered in the middle of the last century and published
for the first time by C. Broeckx. Of these, one, published
in the Annales de V Academie d' Archeologie de Belgique,
tome X (Antwerp, 1853), pp. 327-92, bears the title,
" Eisagoge in artem medicam a Paracelso restitutam,"
whilst the others are commentaries on two of the books of
Hippocrates. Particulars of the works of van Helmont
published during his lifetime will be found in the next
chapter,
12
EARLY LIFE AND STUDIES 13
was also translated into several other languages.
In Chapter II the author gives an interesting
autobiographical sketch of how he was led to
become a physician, which forms practically the
sole authority for most of the details of his early
life. Rather than paraphrase it, it seems to us
more interesting to give the account in the
quaint EngHsh of the first translator, which is as
follows :
" In the year 1580, the most miserable one to
aU Belgium, or the Low Countries, my Father
died. I being the youngest, and of least esteem
of my Brethren and Sisters. For I was brought
up in Studies. But in the year 1594 I had
finished the course of Philosophy, which year
was to me the seventeenth. Therefore since I
had onely a Mother, I seemed at Lovaine to be
made the sole disposer of my Right and Will.
Wherefore I saw none admitted to Examinations,
but in a Gown, and masked with a Hood, as
though the Garment did promise Learning ; I
began to know, that Professors for sometime past,
did expose young men that were to take their
degrees in Arts, to a mock : I did admire at the
certain kinde of dotage in Professors, and so in
the whole World, as also the simphcity of the
rash behef of young men. I drew my self into
an account or reasoning, that at leastwise I
might know by my own judgement, how much I
was a Phylosopher, I examined whether I had
gotten truth, or knowledge.
" I found for certainty, that I was blown up
14 JOANNES BAPTISTA VAN HELMONT
with the Letter, and (as it were the forbidden
Apple being eaten) to be plainly naked, save,
that I had learned artificially to wrangle. Then
first I came to know within my self, that I knew
nothing, and that I knew that which was of no
worth. For the Sphere in natural Phylosophy,
did seem to promise something of knowledge, to
which therefore I had joyned the Astrolobe, the
use of the Ring or Circle, and the speculations
of the Planets. Also I was diligent in the Art
of Logick, and the Science Mathematical, for
delights sake, as often as the reading of other
things had brought a wearisomeness on me.
" Whereto I joyned the Elements, or first
Principles of Euclide ; and this Learning, I had
made sociable to my Genius or natural wit,
because it contained truth ; but by chance, the
art of knowing the Circle of Cornelius Gemma, as
of another Metaphysick, came to my hand.
Which, seeing it onely commended Nicholas
Copernicus, I left not off, till I had made the
same familiar unto me. Whence I learned the
vain excentricities, or things not having one and
the same Center, another circular motion of the
Heavens : and so I presumed, that whatsoever
I had gotten concerning the Heavens, with great
pains, was not worthy of the time bestowed
about it.
" Therefore the Study of Astronomy, was of
little, or no account with me, because it promised
little of certainty or truth, but very many vain
things. Therefore having finished my Course,
when as I knew nothing that was sound, nothing
EARLY LIFE AND STUDIES 15
that was true, I refused the Title of Master of
Arts ; being unfiling that Professors should
play the fool with me, that they should declare
me Master of the seven Ai^ts, who was not yet
a Scholar. Therefore I seeking truth, and
knowledge, but not their appearance, withdrew
my seK from the Schooles.
" A wealthy Cannonship was promised me, so
that I would make my self free to Theology or
Divinity ; But S. Bernard affrighted me from it,
because I should eat the sins of the people. But
I begged of the Lord Jesus, that he would vouch-
safe to call me thither, where I might most
please him. For it was the year, wherein the
Jesuites had begun to teach Philosophy at
Lovaine, the King, Nobles, and University, being
against it ; and that thing, together with them,
was forbidden by Cle^nent the Eighth. But their
Scholars aspiring to their Degree, they had
assembled them to the School-houses ; but
others, and the more rich, they did allure with
the pleasant Study of Geography : and one of
the Professors, Marline del Rio, who first being
the Judge of Tur^na in Spain, and afterwards
wearied in the Senate of Brabant, being allured
to the Society, and had resorted thither also,
did expound the disquisitions, or dihgent examina-
tions of Magick. Both the Readings I greedily
received. And at length, instead of a Harvest,
I gathered onely empty stubbles, and most poor
patcheries, void of judgement.
" In the mean time, least an hoiure should
vanish away without fruit, I rub'd over L.
16 JOANNES BAPTISTA VAN HELMONT
AnncBUS Seneca, who greatly pleased me, and
especially Epictetus. Therefore I seemed, in
moral Philosophy, to have found the juyce of
truth : and then presently I thought, this was
that for which Pythagoras might require the strict
Silences of so many years, an excellent judgement,
and therefore notable obedience. At length, a
few years being changed, I saw a Cajyuchin to be
a Christian Stoick. Indeed Study for Eternity,
smiled on me ; but for so great austereness, my
more tender health was a hinder ance. I prayed
the Prince of life divers times, that he would
give strength, whereby I might contemplate of
the naked truth, and immediately love it.
Thomas of Kempis, increased this desire in me,
and afterwards Taulerus. And when I pre-
sumed, and certainly believed, that through
Stoicisme, I did profit in Christian perfection, at
length, after some stay and weariness in that
exercise, I fell into a Dream.
" I seemed to be made an empty Bubble,
whose Diameter reached from the Earth even to
Heaven : for above hovered a flesh-eater ; but
below, in the place of the Earth, was a bottomless
pit of darkness. I was hugely agast, and also
I fell out of all knowledge of things, and my self.
But returning to my self, I understood by one
conception, that in Christ Jesus, we live, move,
and have our being. That no man can call even
on the name of Jesus to Salvation, without the
special grace of God. That we must continually
pray, And lead us not into temptation, d^c. In-
deed, understanding was given unto me, that
EARLY LIFE AND STUDIES 17
without special grace, to any actions, nothing
but sin attends us. Which being seen, and
favourily known, I admired my former ignor-
ances ; and I knew, that Stoicisme did retain me
an empty and swoUen Bubble, between the
bottomless pit of Hell, and the necessity of
imminent death. I knew I say, that by this
Study, under the shew of moderation, I was made
most haughty : as if trusting in the freedom of
my will, I did renounce divine grace, and as
though, what we would, we might effect by our
selves. Let God forbid such wickedness, I said.
Wherefore I judged, that Blasphemy to be
indulged by Paganisme indeed ; but not to
become a Christian : and so I judged Stoical
Pliilosophy, with this Title, hateful. In the
mean time, when I was tired, and wearied with
the too much reading of other things, for recrea-
tion sake, I rouled over Matliiolus d,n&Diascorides,
thinking with my self, nothing to be equally
necessary for mortal men, as by admiring the
grace of God in Vegetables, to minister to their
proper necessities, and to crop the fruit of the
same.
" Straightway after, I certainly found, the art
of Herbarisme to have nothing increased since
the dayes of Diascorides ; but at this day, the
Images of Herbs being dehvered, with the names
and shapes of Plants, to be on both sides onely
disputed : but nothing of their properties,
virtues and uses, to have been added to the former
invention and Histories : except that those who
came after, have mutually feigned degrees of
2
18 JOANNES BAPTISTA VAN HELMONT
Elementary qualities, to which the temperature
of the Her be is to be attributed. But when I
had certainly found, happily two hundred Herbes,
of one quality and degree, to have divers pro-
perties, and some of divers qualities and degrees,
to have a Sjrmphony or Harmony (suppose it in
vulnerary or wound potions) in producing of the
same effect ; not indeed the Herbs (the various
Pledges of divine Love) but the Herbarists them-
selves began to be of little esteem with me :
and when I wondred at the cause of the im-
stableness of the effects, and of so great darkness
in applying and healing : I inquired whether
there were any Book, that dehvered the Maxims
and Rules of Medicine ? For I supposed,
Medicine might be taught, and dehvered by
Discipline, like other Arts and Sciences, and so
to be by tradition : but not that it was a meer
" At leastwise, seeing Medicine is a Science,
a good gift coming down from the Father
of Lights, I did think, that it might have its
Theoremes and chief Authours, instructed by an
infused knowledge, into whom, as into Bazaleel,
and Aholiah, the spirit of the Lord had inspired
the Causes and knowledge of all Diseases, and
also the knowledge of the properties of things.
Therefore I thought these enlightened men to
be the Standard- defending Professors of healing.
I inquired I say, whether there were not another,
who had described the Endowments, Properties,
Applications and proportions of Vegetables,
from the Hyssop, even to the Cedar of Lihanus ?
EARLY LIFE AND STUDIES 19
" A certain Professor of Medicine answered
me, none of these things might be looked for in
Galen or Avicen. But since I was not apt to
believe, neither did I finde, among Writers, the
certainty sought for, I suspected it according to
truth, that the giver of Medicine would remain
the continual dispenser of the same. Therefore
I being careful! and doubtfull, to what Profes-
sion I should resign my seK, I had regard to the
manners of the People, and Lawes, and pleasures
of Princes ; I saw the Law to be mens Traditions,
and therefore uncertain, unstable, and void of
truth : For because in humane things there is
no stabihty, and no marrow of knowledge, I
seemed to passe over an unprofitable life, if I
should convert it to the pleasures of men.
" Lastly, I knew, that the government of my
seK, was hard enough for me ; but the judge-
ment concerning good men, and the hfe of others,
to be dark, and subject to a thousand vexatious
difficulties : wherefore I whoUy denied, the Study
of the Law, and government of others. On the
other hand, the misery of humane hfe was
m-gent, and the will of God, whereby every one
may defend himself so long as he can ; but I
more inchned with a singular greediness, unto
the most pleasing knowledge of natural things ;
and even as the Soul became Servant to its own
inchnations, I unsensibly slid, altogether into
the knowledge of natiu-al things. Therefore I
read the Institutions of Fuchius, and Ferneliiis,
whereby I knew that I had lookt into the whole
Science of Medicine, as it were by an Epitome,
20 JOANNES BAPTISTA VAN HELMONT
and I smiled to myself. Is the knowledge of
healing thus delivered, without a Theoreme and
Teacher, who hath drawn the gift of healing from
the Adeptist ? Is the whole History of natural
properties, thus shut up in Elementary qualities ?
Therefore I read the works of Galen twice, once
Hipocrates (whose Aphorismes I almost learned
by heart) and all Avicen, and as well the Greeks,
Arabians, as Moderns, happily six hundred, I
seriously, and attentively read thorow, and
taking notice by common places, of whatsoever
might seem singular to me in them, and worthy
of the Quill. At length, reading again my
collected stuffe, I knew my want, and it grieved
me of my pains bestowed, and years : When as
indeed I observed, that all Books, with institu-
tions, singing the same Song, did promise nothing
of soundness, nothing that might promise the
knowledge of truth, or the truth of knowledge.
" In the mean time, even from the beginning I
had gotten from a Merchant, all simples, that I
might keep a little of my own in my possession,
and then from a Clark of the Shops, or a Col-
lector of simples, I had all the usual Plants of
our Countrey ; and so I learned the knowledge
of many by the looks of the same. And also
I thorowly weighed with my self, that indeed I
knew the face of Simples, and their names : but,
than their properties, nothing lesse.
" Therefore I would accompany a practising
Physitian, straightway it repented me again,
and again, of the insufficiency, uncertainty, and
conjectures of healing. I had known indeed,
EARLY LIFE AND STUDIES 21
problematically, or by way of hard question,
to dispute of any Disease, but I knew not how
to cure the very pain of the Teeth, or scabbedness,
radically.
" Lastly, I saw that Fevers and common
Diseases were neither certainly, nor knowingly,
nor safely cured ; but the more grievous ones,
and those which cease not of their own accord,
for the most part were placed into the Catalogue
of incurable Diseases. Then it came into my
minde, that the art of Medicine, was found full
of deceit, without which, the Romanes Uved
happily, five hundred years. I reckoned the
Greeks art of healing to be false : but the Re-
medies themselves, as being some experiments,
no less to help without a Method : than that the
same Remedies, with a Method, did deceive most.
On both sides, I discerning the deceit and un-
certainty of the Rules of Medicine in the diver-
sities of the founders of Complexions, I said with
a sorrowful heart. Good God ! how long wilt
thou he angry with mortal inen ? who hitherto
hast not disclosed one truth, in heahng, to thy
Schooles ? how long wilt thou deny truth to a
people confessing thee ? needful in these dayes,
more than in times past ? Is the Sacrifice of
Moloch pleasing to thee ? wilt thou have the
lives of the poor. Widows, and Fatherless Children,
consecrated to thy self, under the most miserable
torture, of incurable Diseases, and despair ?
How is it therefore, that thou ceasest not to
destroy so many Families, through the uncer-
tainty and ignorance of Physitians ? I fell
22 JOANNES BAPTISTA VAN HELMONT
withall on my face, and said, Oh Lord, pardon me,
if favour towards my Neighbour, hath snatched me
away beyond my bounds. Pardon, pardon. Oh
Lord, my indiscreet Charity ; for thou art the
radicall good of goodness it self. Thou hast known
my sighes, and that I confess, that I am, know,
am^worth, am able to do, and have nothing, that
I am poor, naked, empty, vain: give 0 Lord,
give knowledge to thy Creature, that he may very
affectionately know thy Creature, himself first, other
things besides himself, for thy Command of Charity,
all things, and more than all things, to be ultimately
in thee.
" Which thing, when I had earnestly prayed
from much tiresomness, and wearisomness of
minde, by chance I was led into a Dream, and I
saw the whole Universe, in the sight or view of
truth, as it were some Chaos or confused thing,
without form, which was almost meer nothing.
And thence I drew the conceiving of one word ;
which did signifie to me, what foUowes. Behold
thou, and what things thou seest, are nothing;
whatsoever thou dost urge, is lesse than nothing
it self, in the sight of the most high. He knowes
all the ends or bounds of things to be done ;
thou at leastwise mayst apply thy self to thy
own safety. Yea in that Conception, was there
an inward Precept, that I should be made a
Physitian, and that at sometime, Raphael himseK
should be given unto me. Forthwith therefore,
and for thirty whole years after, and their nights
following in order, I laboured, to my cost, and
dammage of my life, that I might obtain the
EARLY LIFE AND STUDIES 23
Natures of Vegetables and Mineralls, and the
knowings of their properties. The mean while,
I lived not without prayer, reading, narrow
search of things, sifting of my Errours, and daily
experiences written down together. At length,
I knew with Salomon, I had for the most part
hitherto perplexed my Spirit in vain, and vain to
be the knowledge of all things, which are under
the Sun : vain are the searchings out of Curiosities.
And whom the Lord Jesus shall call unto Wisdom,
He, and no other shall come ; yea, he that hath
come to the top, shall as yet be able to do very
little, unless the bountiful favour of the Lord
shall shine upon him. Loe, thus haue I waxed
ripe of age, being become a man, and now also
an old man, unprofitable, and unacceptable to
God, to whom be all Honour." ^
1 In all the quotations from Oriatrike, the spelling, punctua-
tion, and use of capital letters and italics of the original have
been preserved.
CHAPTER III
TRAVELS AND TRIALS
In the previous chapter we have learned how
van Helmont decided to devote his hfe to
medicine, and how he had prepared himself for
the task by the study of the various sciences of
his day, more especially botany and the medical
authors then in repute. But he was destined
to meet with many disappointments, and not
to achieve satisfaction in this resolve, until he
had broken entirely with traditional teaching
and had learned to rely only upon his own
observations, and the intuitions of his own
original mind.
At an early age he was appointed to deliver
a course of lectm^es on surgery at the College of
Medicine in Louvain. According to his own
statement these lectures were dehvered when he
was only seventeen ^ ; but this seems improbable
in view of the fact — ^as stated by him — that he
had at this time only just completed his philo-
sophical studies ; and, with M. Rommelaere/
1 " Tumulus Pestis," ch. i, Oriatrike, p. 1078.
* See Dr. W. Rommelaere's " fitudes sur J. B. van Hel-
mont," Memoir es des Concours et des Savants etrangers,
publies par VAcademie Royale de Medecine de BelgiquCf
tome vi (Brussels, 1866), pp. 287 et seq. This work contains
a very minute biography of van Helmont, which we have
24
TRAVELS AND TRIALS 25
we are inclined to put the giving of these lectures
at some date soon after 1599, when van Helmont
says that he graduated Doctor of Medicine of the
University of Louvain.^ Van Helmont, in his
works, emphasised the importance of surgery
and deplored the neglect of it by the physicians
of his day. He reahsed that the genuine man of
science ought not to be ashamed to use his hands,
and in later years devoted considerable time to
anatomy — carrying out many dissections, not
(in the Galenical style) of animals only, but of
the dead bodies of men and women — whereby he
was able to gain considerable information con-
cerning the nature of disease. Van Helmont,
however, was disappointed with his lectures,
because his knowledge of surgery at that time
was based merely upon the information gained
by the reading of books, and he almost gave up
the profession of medicine in despair.
It would appear to be some little while after
this that he was so unfortunate as to contract
the scabies or itch, through shaking hands with
a lady who was afflicted with the disease. We
have said that he was imfortunate, but, as the
sequel will show, the event bore goodly fruit both
for van Helmont and the science of medicine.
Two of the more famous physicians of his city
diagnosed the complaint in accordance with
Galen's principles, as being due to " adust or
found very useful, and to which we acknowledge our in-
debtedness, although it appears to us that the author dates
with a greater degi-ee of precision some of the events in van
Helmont' s life than the evidence would seem to warrant.
1 " The Authours Promises," col. iii, § 7, Oriatrike, p. 7.
26 JOANNES BAPTISTA VAN HELMONT
burnt choler . . . together with salt phlegm,"
and judged the seat of the disease to be in the
liver. The orthodox Galenical remedies were
appUed. Naturally van Helmont was not cured :
indeed he became excessively ill. The result
convinced him of the falsity of the Galenical
system of medicine. He considered the disease
in question to be one of the skin only, and cured
it himself in three months by the apphcation of
a sulphur ointment.^
No doubt the reading of the works of Para-
celsus, to whom he freely acknowledges his
indebtedness,^ helped to liberate van Helmont's
mind from the fetters of orthodoxy in medicine ;
but he can only be called a follower of Paracelsus
in a limited sense of that term. Whilst his
theory of the archeus, to which we shall refer
later, was adapted from Paracelsus, and whilst
he agreed with him in beheving, for example,
in the reality of sympathetic cures, msmy of
Paracelsus's leading doctrines he rejected. He
did not, for instance, accept the Paracelsian
doctrine of the three principles, salt, sulphur and
mercury, as the basis of all things ; nor did he
agree with Paracelsus's view of man as a micro-
cosm, thinking it more seemly to envisage man
as made in the image of God. In his work on
the Plague, one of bis dreams is related, in which
he seemed to behold the vaults of Nature, wherein
1 " The Scab and Ulcers of the Schools," §§ 2-10, Oriatrike,
pp. 316-319, and " An Unheard-of Doctrine of Fevers,"
ch. V, §§ 10-12, ibid., pp. 958 and 959.
2 " The Arcanums or Secrets of Paracelsus,'' Oriatrike,
p. 802, and elsewhere.
TRAVELS AND TRIALS 27
are hidden her inmost truths. We read as
follows :
" Galen hath seemed to me, to have entred
into the Vaults with a slender Lamp ; who being
presently affrighted, stumbled in the entry, and
at first almost fell over the Threshold : Therefore,
his Oyl being lavishly spent, he returned to his
own, and told many things confusedly, concern-
ing the Sepulclires, which he had not perceived,
nor known, nor beheved, although he had seen
them. ... At length, Paracelsus having entred
with a great Torch, fastened a small cord to the
wall, about his first paces, which he might follow
as a Companion, and Reducer of the wayes ; he
aspiring to pierce whither the footsteps of mortals
had not yet taken their journey. The rout of
Birds [these being birds of night] is presently
amazed at so great a light, it thinks that Prome-
theus had entred ; it dares not, nor was able to
extinguish the Torch, yet it secretly attempts to
do it. This man seeth very many Monuments, he
is long and freely enlarged, he fills the entries
with smoak, and while he is intentive, as a greedy
devourer of truth, his strength fails, his Torch
falls, his fight is extinguished in the middle of
his course, and he is as it were choaked with
fumes. I a poor miserable man, have at length
entred with the least fight of a Lanthorn ; and
that nothing might hinder, and that nothing
might detain my hand from the work, I indeed
refused a Rope, and hung my Lanthorn at my
girdle, but a Crook followed at my back, making
28 JOANNES BAPTISTA VAN HELMONT
a path the rule of my return : Therefore I insist-
ing only in my own footsteps, I there saw far
other tilings than the foregoing company of
Ancestors had described." ^
During the first few years of the seventeenth
century van Helmont engaged in travel. Accord-
ing to M. Rommelaere, he undertook two voyages,
the first to Switzerland and Italy, the second to
England and other parts of the Continent. In
one place in his works, he wrote that he left the
Netherlands " with an intention of going far
from home, of forsaking medicine, and of never
returning into my Country." ^ If he anticipated
finding more hberal views abroad, he was destined
to disappointment. Everjrvrhere he found " the
same sluggishness and ignorance," ^ and in 1605
he decided to return to his native land. On
landing at Antwerp, he found that an epidemic of
malignant fever was raging, in the com'se of
which dropsy was developed, often proving
fatal.* If he had hesitated previously regarding
his mission in life, he hesitated no longer. His
sjonpathy with human suffering was too intense
to be balked of its object. He threw himself
vigorously into a contest with the disease, and
had the happiness of restoring to health a large
number of the afflicted persons.
In his w^ork on the Plague, van Helmont
draws the portrait of a true physician. Such a
1 '' Tumulus Pestis," ch. i, Oriatrike, pp. 1074 and 1075.
2 Ibid., p. 1079.
' " The Authours Promises," col. iii, § 6, Oriatrike, p. 7,
* " The Dropsie is Unknown," § 11, Oriatrike, p. 510.
TRAVELS AND TRIALS 29
man, according to him, must be chosen by God.
He writes :
" He shall 'prepare, to the honour of God, his
free gifts, to the comfort of his Neighbour ; and
therefore compassion shall he his Leader : For he
shall possess truth in his heart, and knowledge in
his understanding ; Charity shall be his Sister, and
the mercy of the Lord shall enlighten his ways :
For he shall employ or bestow the grace or favour
of the Lord, and the hope of gain shall not he in his
thoughts : for the Lord is rich and liberal, aiid will
give him an hundred-fold, in an heaped up measure.
He will fructifle his ivorJcs, and annoint his hands
ivith blessing : He will fill his mouth with consola-
tions, and with the Trumpet his word, from which
diseases shall flee : He will fill his life with length
of daies, his house with riches, and his Children
icith the fear of the Lord : His footsteps shall bring
felicity, and diseases shall be in his sight, as snoio
in the Noon-day of Summer, in an open Valley :
Curse and punishment shall flee away, and health
shall follow him behind. These are the promises
of the Lord, unto Physitians whom he hath chosen :
These are the blessings of those, who ivalk in the
path of mercy : Because the Lord loveth those that
work mercy ; and therefore will he enlighten them
by his Spirit, the Comforter. For who is liberal as
the Lord, who gives many things freely, and for
some small matter, bestoweth all things. Blessed
is the Lord, who saves only the merciful man, and
who saves him that is to be saved, freely. But con-
solation shall meet the merciful man, in the tvay
30 JOANNES BAPTISTA VAN HELMONT
of hope ; because he hath chosen a faithful
Master:' ^
This description is no mere piece of rhetoric :
it is a portrait of van Helmont himself. Pre-
vious to his leaving the Netherlands, he gave up
the whole of his estates by deed of gift to his
widowed sister. ^ He attended the poor and
freely gave them medicines, asking no fee in
return ; and he was only persuaded to accept
payment from richer patients by a confessor
who urged that otherwise rich men who needed
his aid would be too ashamed to ask for it.'
Both Ernest of Bavaria, Elector of Cologne, and
the Emperor Rudolph II tendered him honour-
able and lucrative appointments ; but he refused
these offers, preferring to remain free to devote
his time to scientific research and to healing the
sick poor. ^ Similar offers made later by Rudolph's
successors met with no other response.
In or about 1609 van Helmont married, his wife
being Margaret van Ranst, who v/as a rich heiress
and daughter of William Charel van Ranst and
Elizabeth de Halmale. As M. Rommelaere re-
marks,^ from all that can be gathered, the
marriage was a most happy one, van Helmont's
wife proving a true companion and help-meet
in all his struggles and trials. Shortly after his
marriage, he retired to Vilvorde and spent the
1 " Tumiilus Pestis," ch. i, Oriatrike, p. 1076.
2 " Tumulus Pestis," ch. i, Oriatrike, p. 1079.
3 " Tumulus Pestis," ch. i, Oriatrike, p. 1079, and " Of
the Disease of the Stone," ch. vii, § 3, ibid., p. 873.
4 " Tumulus Pestis," ch. i, Oriatrike, p. 1079.
5 Op. cit„ p. 203.
TRAVELS AND TRIALS 31
next seven years of his life entirely in scientific
research, mostly in the domain of chemistry,
and in the free heahng of the sick poor,^
allowing notliing to distract him therefrom.
His attitude towards the orthodox medical
doctrines of the day, and especially the success
which attended the practical application of his
own theories to the curing of disease, aroused the
enmity of his fellow physicians, which became
greatly intensified by the publication by him, at
Leyden, in 1615, of a work entitled Dageraed, oft
Nieuive Opkomst der Geneeskonst, in verborgen
grondt-regelen der Natuere, in which he ruthlessly
exposed the follies of the Galenists and criticised
their views in the most scathing terms. To
criticise error, when it is powerful and popular,
is alwaj^s dangerous. He knew this, of course,
but it did not deter him. No honourable method
of retahation was possible to liis enemies, so they
sought for one that was dishonourable. No
opportimity for this, however, presented itself,
until, in 1621, van Helmont published, at Paris,
a treatise on the Sympathetic or Magnetic Curing
of Wounds, entitled De Magnetica vulnerum
naturali et legitima curatione, contra R. P. Johan-
nem Roherti Theologice doctorern Societatis Jesu,
in which he undertook to reply to two writers,
Goclenius, a professor of philosophy, who had
endeavoured to explain, in a weak and imsatis-
factory manner in his judgment, sympathetic cures
as the result of purely natural causes, and the
1 " The Authours Promises," col. iii, § 7, Oriatrike, p. 7,
and " Tumxilus Pestis," ch. i, ibid., p. 1079.
32 JOANNES BAPTISTA VAN HELMONT
Jesuit, Joannes Roberti, who also believed in the
reality of the cures, but deemed them to be of
the devil. It appears that van Helmcnt had
written this work some years previously, at the
instance of J. Roberti's brother, but without the
intention of publishing it. He was afterwards
persuaded to publish it by J. Roberti himself,
which he did, only after it had received the
approval of the ecclesiastical authorities. His
enemies immediately found a large number of
passages of an heretical nature in the book. As a
matter of fact, van Helmont was the last man who
could justly be accused of heresy. He was a
pious and devout catholic, and from a modern
point of view is, indeed, open to criticism for
having treated the dogmas of the Church with
too great deference. Thus, in one place in liis
works, for instance, he refused to speak of an
earthquake as a movement of the earth, because
the Church taught that the earth was immobile. ^
It was true, however, that in this treatise on the
Magnetic Curing of Wounds — as wiU appear
when we come to deal with the book — he trod
on dangerous ground, and was so far indiscreet
as to utter the very just injunction : " Let the
Divine enquire concerning God, but the NaturaHst
concerning Nature." ^ The prosecutor for the
ecclesiastical tribunal of Malines-Brussels, how-
ever, was very little moved by the complaint
1 " The Trembling of the Earth, or Earthquake," § 2,
Oriatrike, pp. 92 and 93.
2 " Of the Magnetick or Attractive Cui-ing of Wounds,"
§ 9, Oriatrike, p. 761.
TRAVELS AND TRIALS 33
that was lodged against him by his enemies, and
took no action in the matter. ^
But his enemies did not desist and denuncia-
tions were rained down upon him, without,
however, deterring him in his determination to
destroy the errors of traditionahsm in medicine
and to build up a sounder system of chemical
and medical philosophy. In 1624 he pubhshed, at
Liege, a third work, entitled Supplementum de
Spadanis Fontibus, deahng with the properties
of Spa water and, by criticising a previous writer
on this subject, Henri de Heer, made for himself
a fresh enemy. This year, also, saw the publica-
tion at Cologne of a second edition of De Mag-
netica vulnerum,^ which F. M. van Helmont
seems to suggest was the work of his enemies ;
the book he says was " often printed, only for
the Collecting of the Stripes of Censurers." ^ In
1625 van Helmont's opponents succeeded in
getting from the examiners of the Holy Inquisi-
tion of Spain a condemnation of a number of pro-
1 Corneille Broeckx has gone into the matter of van Hel-
mont's persecution very thoroughly, and his " Notice sur le
Manuscript Causa J. B. Helmontii deposee aux Archives
Archiepiscopales de Malines," Annales de V Academie d'Arche-
ologie de Belgique, tome ix (Antwerp, 1852), pp. 341-67,
and Interrogntoires du Docteur J. B. van Helmont sur le Mag-
netisme Animal (Antwerp, 1856), contain all the relevent
facts that are known.
* According to the Nouvelle Biographie Gmerale depiiis
les temps les plus recules (Paris, 1858), tome xxiii. We
have been vmable to verify the editions of De Magnetica
vulnerum published during van Helmont's lifetime. The
British Museum has a copy of a posthiimous edition (pub-
lished 1662) only.
* Oriatrike, Preface by F. M. van Helmont.
3
34 JOANNES BAPTISTA VAN HELMONT
positions contained in his book as heretical and
appertaining to magic. In the autumn of 1627
van Helmont was interrogated by Leroy, the
official of Malines, and his secretary, concerning
the presumably heretical propositions. He
replied that he had submitted the book to the
ecclesiastical authorities and would abide by
the decision of the Church concerning it. At a
later interrogation, in 1630, he declared himself
willing to burn the offending book if the tribunal
judged this to be necessary.
During the whole of this time his enemies were
incessant in their efforts. The entire forces of
traditionahsm and bigotry were united to en-
compass his destruction. The medical and
theological faculties of most of the leading conti-
nental universities were unanimous in their
condemnation, and their verdict was published
at Leyden, in 1634, in a work directed against
him.i A further edition of the offending treatise
also appeared in this year at Liege, " and the same
year witnessed the triumph of his enemies. Their
victim was arrested. His books and charts were
confiscated, and he was imprisoned in the Con-
vent of the Friars Minor, or Franciscans, of
Brussels. He did not, however, remain there
more than two weeks, since a request that he
should be allowed to serve his imprisonment at
* Joannis Baptistce Helmontii medici et philosophi per
ignem propositiones notatu dignce, depromptoe ex ejus disputa-
tione de magnetica vulnerum curatione Parisiis edita. Additce
sunt censurce celeb err imorum tota Europa theologorum et
medicorum ex autographus optima fide descriptce.
' According to Rommelaere, op. cit. See footnote 2, p. 33.
TRAVELS AND TRIALS 35
home, backed up by an exceedingly large bail
offered by his father-in-law, was finally granted.
His position became, as Ferguson remarks,
" something resembhng a ticket-of -leave man
under police supervision." ^
Van Helmont's cup of misfortune was not yet,
however, full. During the period of his imprison-
ment, an epidemic of the plague broke out.
He was, apparently, allowed to attend certain of
the sick during this period, and rescued many.
Amongst others to be afflicted were the two
elder of his three sons, who might have escaped,
had they been wilhng to go into the country and
forsake their father. These were removed to the
hospital at Vilvorde in charge of the nuns. The
nuns attending them promised to administer
van Helmont's remedies, but, after they had re-
ceived the two patients, they refused to give any
other than the orthodox Galenical ones, with the
result that both died.
The conditions of van Helmont's imprison-
ment appear to have been relaxed after some
years, and it seems that he regained his hberty
before he died, though the whole matter is wrapped
in obscurity ; and it was not until two years
after his death that he was completely cleared
of the charge of heresy. In 1642 he pubhshed,
at Antwerp, his work on Fevers, Febrium doc-
trina inaudita, which was followed by a further
edition, pubhshed at Cologne, in 1644, containing
1 John Ferguson : A Catalogue of the Alchemical, Chemical
and Pharmaceutical Books in the Collection of the late James
Young of Kelly and Durris, Esq. (Glasgow, 1906), vol. i,
p. 381.
36 JOANNES BAPTISTA VAN HELMONT
in addition three other monographs, deahng
respectively with the Disease of the Stone, the
Plague, and the Errors of the Galenists, the
general title of the book being Opuscula Medica
iiiaudita.
In the intervening year (1643), an accident
happened to van Helmont which nearly cost
him his Hfe. Writing in a closed room, in which,
on account of the cold, he had caused a pan of
burning coals to be placed, he was overcome by
the fumes (carbon monoxide). Fortunately his
young daughter, with a sound instinct, removed
the brazier in time. He recovered and was able
to use this experience to illustrate one of his
medical theories.^
Towards the end of 1644 he contracted pleurisy ;
and, weakened by his labours and by the treat-
ment which had been meted out to him, he
succumbed. 2 He was hated by those (and they
were not few) whose errors and folHes his sharp
intellect had pierced. Not only, however, was
he loved by his family, but he had earned
the devotion and gratitude of the immense
nimiber of men and women he had rescued from
disease and death. By his work he had raised
the edifice of science a stage higher than that in
which he found it, he had rebuilt and strengthened
some of its foundations, and thereby earned for
himseK an imperishable name in the history of
thought.
1 " The Authority or Priviledge of the Duumvirate,"
§ 20, Oriatrike, p. 300, and " Of the Disease of the Stone,"
ch. ix, § 54, ibid., pp. 909 and 910.
? Oriatrike, Preface by F. M. van Helmont,
CHAPTER IV
MYSTICISM AND MAGIC
(a) Epistemology
Concerning mysticism the late C. C. Massey
wrote as follows :
" Mysticism is a peculiar vital apprehension of
spiritual principles and energies, and of their func-
tional operations in or through man and nature.
It claims a certitude analogous to that of sensible
experience, and usually designated 'intuitional.'
Thought, in whatever province it is exercised,
seeks to recover for consciousness the synthesis
of its related elements ; ' intuition ' gives this
synthesis immediately, and is a direct percep-
tion of truth in an organic and concrete unity." ^
The point is well brought out in the works of
van Helmont. A keen opponent of the futiHties
of scholastic philosophy, he opens his criticism of
it by an attack on reason. The word is, of
course, employed by him, not with the wide
1 Thoughts of a Modern Mystic : a Selection from the
Writings of the late C. C. Massey, edited by Professor W. F,
Barrett, F.R.S. (London, 1909), p. 136. Cf. H. S. Red-
grove : " The Natiire of Intuition," The Magic of Experience,
(London, 1915), § 28, pp. 56 and 57.
37
38 JOANNES BAPTISTA VAN HELMONT
denotation of modern usage, but as signifying
the dianoetic reason, i.e. the discursive or ratio-
cinative faculties, in contradistinction to the
noetic. Not by mere argument or the demon-
strations of deductive logic is a true understanding
of things to be attained. He writes :
" The knowledge which we have by demon-
stration, was already before in us, and onely is
made a little more distinct by a Syllogisme :
but yet it remains as before, joyned with doubt-
ing : Because every conclusion doth necessarily
follow the weaker part of the premises : hence
it comes to passe, that it is composed with a doubt
of the contrary." ^
And again :
" The understanding is alway perfected, by
suffering and receiving. But the imaginative
knowledge or animal understanding, which was
known to Aristotle, beholdeth things onely on the
outside, and frameth to it self Images or like-
nesses thereof, according to its own thinking ;
and with all wearisomness of labours, runs about
them into a circle." ^
Real knowledge must, in its very nature,
involve intuition ; for it to be possible the knower
and the thing known must, in some way, become
identified :
1 " Logick is unprofitable," § 13, Oriatrihe, p. 39.
* " The hunting, or searching out of Sciences," § 61,
Oriatrihe^ p. 26.
MYSTICISM AND MAGIC 39
*' The very under standingness of a thing, is
nothing but a coming to, and immediate approach
of the unity of the understanding, and of the
thing understood." ^
It is recorded that on the portico of the ancient
temple of Delphi was engraven the command,
" Man, know thyself." If man could but com-
pletely know himself he would know all things :
van Helmont thus gives expression to this great
mystic truth :
" Our Soul understanding it self, doth after a
sort, understand all other things, because aU
other things, are in an intellectual manner in
the Soul, as in the Image of God. Wherefore
indeed, the understanding of our selves, is most
exceeding difficult, ultimate or remote, excellent,
profitable, beyond other things." ^
How then is this knowledge to be attained ?
Van Helmont indicates two necessary requisites.
Not less than any modern scientific philosopher
does he insist upon the need of experiment.
Indeed, his whole life affords a demonstration of
his devotion to scientific research. True know-
ledge of natiu-al phenomena is to be gained, he
indicates, " not indeed by a naked description of
discourse, but by handicraft demonstration of
the fire."=»
1 " The hunting, or searching out of Sciences," § 55,
Oriatrike, p. 25.
2 Ibid., § 56, Oriatrike, p. 25.
' " The ignorant Natural Philosophy of Aristotle and
Galen," § 10, Oriatrike, p. 45.
40 JOANNES BAPTISTA VAN HELMONT
But something still more is necessary. No
philosopher, denying the reality of the spiritual,
has been able to explain how it is possible for
the mind to pass from the particular to the
general, that is, from particular instances gained
by experience, to induce a natural law or general
theory. There is something magical in it. It
partakes — ^as van Helmont indicates — of the
nature of revelation. He writes :
" But if a happy Soul shall sometimes conceive
of God in it self, by the beatifical Vision, then
by the same beam of light, he shall behold and
know God himself, and all other things in-
wardly." ^
In reading van Helmont's account of his early
studies, already quoted in Chapter II, one cannot
but be impressed by the importance he attached
to his dream-experience. In this attitude he
persisted tliroughout his life. In one place in
his works we read as follows :
" In sleep, the whole knowledge of the Apple
[i.e., that which obscures the magical powers of
pristine man] doth sometimes sleep : Hence also
it is, that our dreams are sometimes Prophetical,
and God himself is therefore the nearer unto
Man in Dreams, through that effect." ^
We may, perhaps, be inclined to criticise van
1 " The hunting, or searching out of Sciences," § 57,
Oriatrike, p. 25.
2 " Of the Magnetick or Attractive Curing of Wounds,"
§ 98, Oriatrike, p. 781.
MYSTICISM AND MAGIC 41
Helmont for the faith he put in dreams ; but we
must remember that it is especially in dreams
that the products of unconscious thought — the
importance of which modern psychology demon-
strates— become manifest ; though it would,
indeed, seem to require some special degree of
intellectual acumen — of mystic insight, shall we
say ? — ^for consciousness to separate, from the
dross, that which is of value in what remains
for it of such products. We should certainly
hesitate to recommend anyone to follow van
Helmont in the rehance he placed in his dreams.
But they do not appear to have led him astray.
It was a dream which caused him finally to devote
liis life to medicine, and it was another dream that
prevented him from following a resolve made in
a moment of depression to destroy his medical
writings.
(6) Ontology
Van Helmont's deeply rehgious attitude of
mind is evident in every one of his writings.
His epistemology looks to God as the source of
all knowledge, his ontology finds in God the
source of all being. For him. Nature is " the
ComTYiand of God, whereby a thing is that which
it is, arid doth that ivhich it is comtnanded to do
or act.'' ^ Elsewhere he writes : " Created things
do alwayes respect the will of their Creator,
which man alone neglecteth." ^
Aristotle's theory of causation he entirely
* ** The ignorant Natural Philosophy of Aristotle and
Galen," § 3, Oriatrike, p. 42.
2 " The Gas of the Water," § 41, Oriatrike, p. 77.
42 JOANNES BAPTISTA VAN HELMONT
rejected. After God, there are, according to
him, strictly speaking, only two causes of things,
the material, or cause ex qua, and the efficient, or
cause per quam. The ends (or forms) reside in the
latter and have no existence apart from it. The
material cause — as we shall see more fully in the
following chapter — ^he considered to be water.
The efficient cause is a quasi-spiritual principle,
the " archeus " or " master workman," whose
activity is manifested as a " fermentation " ;
this activity is excited and its quality determined
by certain " ferments " present in the matter
operated upon. Van Helmont was essentially a
chemist ; he sought to found his philosophy on
chemical facts and theories as known to him,
rather than on logic as Aristotle had done, and,
impressed with the phenomena of the alcoholic
fermentation of grape juice and malt, he thought
he saw therein a clue to the deepest mysteries
of Nature's activities.
It must be confessed, however, that, as con-
cerns the problem of causation, he was more
successful as a critic of scholasticism than as a
constructive thinker. His own theory is at
once obscure and fantastic. The following
epitome of it, quoted from Thomson's History
of Chemistry, is perhaps as clear an account as
can be hoped for :
" According to Van Helmont, a particular
disposition of matter, or a particular mixture of
that matter is not necessary for the formation
of a body. The archeus, by its sole power,
MYSTICISM AND MAGIC 43
draws all bodies from water, when the ferment
exists. This ferment, in its quality of a mean
which determines the action of the archeus, is
not a formal being ; it can neither be called a
substance, nor an accident. It pre-exists in the
seed which is developed by it, and which contains
in itself a second ferment of the seed, the product
of the first. The ferment exhales an odour,
which attracts the generating spirit of the
archeus. This spirit consists in an aura vitalis,
and it creates the bodies of nature in its own
image, after its own idea. It is the true founda-
tion of life, and of all the functions of organised
bodies ; it disappears only at the instant of
death to produce a new creation of the body,
which enters then, for the second time, into
fermentation." ^
(c) Psychology
Turning now to van Helmont's psychological
doctrines, we notice in the first place that,
contrary to current opinion, he regarded the
stomach, and especially its upper mouth, as the
seat of the sensitive soul, from whence, by means
of the archeus, the soul's influence was diffused
throughout the body, as the rays of light are
brought from the sun to the earth. ^ In the
chapters of his works devoted to this subject,
several reasons are given for this view, reference
being made to phenomena which can be recog-
1 Thomas Thomson : The History of Chemistry (The
National Library, No. Ill, London, 1830), pp. 183 and 184.
a " A Mad or Foolish Idea," and "The Seat of the Soul,"
Oriatrike, pp. 272-88.
44 JOANNES BAPTISTA VAN HELMONT
nised in some cases as due to the sympathetic
nervous system. Very interesting is an account
of a remarkable experience he had as the result
of swallowing a small quantity of monkshood,^
in the course of an investigation of the effects of
poisons. Soon after taking the drug he most
clearly felt his powers of understanding and
thought to be concentrated in his stomach. The
feeling passed in the course of a couple of hours.
Attempts to reinduce it by repeating doses of the
drug proved unsuccessful.
The brain, according to him, is " the executive
member of the conceipts of the soul, as it sits
chief over the sinews and muscles, in respect of
motion ; but in respect of sense or feeling, it
possesseth in it self, the faculties of memory,
will, and Imagination " : whilst the " minde
sitteth in the sensitive soul, whereto it was
consequently bound after the fall." ^ Madness,
he regarded as a disease, not of the mind, but of
the sensitive soul ; it only appears to affect
the mind because this is bound to the soul.
The mind is immortal, and is " the neerest image
of the Divinity." ^
1 " A Mad or Foolish Idea," § 12, Oriatrike, p. 274. Thom-
son {op. cit.y p. 186) says the herb was " aconitum [hen-
6ane)," which is an error, since aconitum is not henbane
{Hyoscyamus niger, L.). Van Helmont writes Napellus,
that is, monkshood, wolfsbane or aconite {Aconitum Napellus^
L.). The plant was well known to the ancients as a poison.
Its physiological effects are due to three alkaloids, aconine,
aconitine, and benzaconine.
a " The Seat of the Soul," § 32, Oriatrike, p. 288.
3 " The compleating or perfecting of the minde," § 13,
Oriatrike^ p. 312.
MYSTICISM AND MAGIC 45
Van Helmont, like Paracelsus, was rather fond
of coining new words to express his ideas, though
he took care to explain what he meant by them.
One of these words is " bias," by which is sig-
nified the power of activity peculiar to each
thing, impressed on it by the Creator. Thus " a
naturall Winde, is a floiving Air, moved by the
Bias of the Stars.'' ^ To this bias of the stars
he attributed the changes in the seasons and
other meteorological phenomena, but the doctrines
of astrology he repudiated. Heredity, rather
than astral influence, he regarded as supplying
the explanation of the manifold diversities of
human character, no less than that of brute
beasts. The stars, for him, are indeed, as the
Scripture says, for " Signs, Times or Seasons,
dayes and years " ; but they are destitute of
influence upon man, the source of whose inchna-
tions, rather, is to be found in the seed where-
from he has sprung. Man possesses free will.
In him there is a " twofold Bias : To wit. One
which existeth by a natural motion ; but the
other is voluntary, which existeth as a mover to
it self by an internal wilhng." ^ To this "in-
ternal bias " or will, van Helmont attributed
very potent powers, in which respect he seems
to be in agreement with modern thought. In-
deed, we are only just beginning to reahse
how potent these powers are, and further research
may open up to us possibihties hardly reahsed
at the present moment. In this connection it
* "A Vacuum or emptiness of Nature," § 1, OriatrikCf p. 81,
2 " The Bias of Man," § 9, Oriatrike, p. 177.
46 JOANNES BAPTISTA VAN HELMONT
will be of interest to deal with van Helmont's
work on the Magnetic Curing of Wounds, in
which the matter is treated in some detail.
(d) The Power op Magnetism
In common with many of his contemporaries,
van Helmont was much impressed by the re-
markable properties of the lodestone, and he
grouped along with such phenomena, under the
general name of " magnetism," such other cases
as were known to him of (apparent) action at a
distance, as, for example, the attraction of
rubbed amber for pieces of chaff, etc., the heho-
tropism of plants and the phenomenon of con-
sonance as exhibited by a couple of viohn strings,
together with a number of instances of sjonpa-
thetic magic which were w^ell accredited in his
day, but in which it may seem surprising that a
man of so great acumen as himself should have
believed. Of these, the behef in the cure of
wounds by Paracelsus's sympathetic ointment,^
which was applied not to the wound itself, but
to the bloody weapon wherewith it had been
inflicted, may serve as a typical sample. Van
Helmont strove, in his work on the Magnetic
Curing of Wounds, to show the rationale of this
marvel ; and one can only reflect on the difficulty
which even the greatest minds experience in
freeing themselves from the errors of their age.
When he writes concerning the magnetism of
1 See H. S. Redgrove : " The Powder of Sympathy : a
curious Medical Superstition," Bygone Beliefs (London,
1920), for full details as to this.
MYSTICISM AND MAGIC 47
n, however, his work is on a higher level. He
its out that, if man be truly made in the image
'jrod, then like God he ought to be able to act,
^ some things at any rate, by a mere effort of
s will, that is to say, by his word alone. This
ver, he says, hes in the hidden man, obscure,
as it were asleep, in his present corrupted
e. Its activity is, for this reason, restricted
operating within a man's own body, but the
Ability remains (and is not doubted by van
elmont) of its becoming fully awakened and
)erative on external objects.^
rhis power, van Helmont calls "magical,"
'ning his readers not to be afraid of the name,
'btless, he says, it is this power which the
"1 uses for his own ends in the case of witches
.a their like. But the power is certainly not
11 in itself. It is indeed God-given, and, if it
V be awakened for evil purposes, no less may
3 awakened for good. He suggests that in
mysteries of the Kahalah one method for
eving this is contained. He writes as
>ws :
" There doth inhabit in the Soul, a certain
ical Virtue, given her of God, naturally
)er and belonging unto her, inasmuch as we
> his Image and Engravment ; that in this
ect also, she acts after a peculiar manner,
J is, spiritually on an Object at a distance,
.ci that much more powerfully, than by any
*• Of the Magnetick or Attractive Curing of Wounds,"
90-97, Oriatrike, pp. 780 and 781,
48 JOANNES BAPTISTA VAN HELMONT
corporeal helps ; because, seeing the Soul is the
more principal part of the Body ; therefore the
Action belonging unto her, is spiritual, magical,
and of the greatest Validity : That the Soul
doth by the same Virtue which was rendred as
it were drowsie through the knowledge gotten
by eating of the Apple, govern and stir her own
Body : but that the same magical Faculty being
somewhat awakened, is able to act also out of
her Prison, on another distant Object, only by
her Beck, conveighed thereunto by Mediums :
for therein indeed is placed the whole Foundation
of natural Magick ; but in no wise, in Blessings,
Ceremonies, and vain Superstitions ; but that
all these wicked observances were brought in by
him, whose endeavour it hath alwayes been,
every where to defile all good things with his
Tares.
" But we do not tremble at the name of Magick,
but with the Scripture, interpret it in a good
sense :
" Yet we have granted that it may be indiffer'
ently employed to a good or evil Intent, to wit,
by the use or abuse of that Power.
" And so that, under that Word we understand
the most profound inbred knowledge of things,
and the most potent Power for acting, being
alike natural to us with Adam, not extinguished
by Sin, not obliterated, but as it were become
drowsie, therefore wanting an Excitement.
" Therefore we shew, that Magnetism is
exercised, not indeed by Satan ; but by that
which belongs not to Satan ; and therefore that
MYSTICISM AND MAGIC 49
this Power which is co-natural unto us, hath
stood abusively dedicated to Satan, as if he were
the Patron thereof : that the Magical Power
doth as it were sleep in us since Sin, and therefore
that it hath need of a stirrer up.
" Whether that Exciter be the holy Spirit by
Illumination, as the Church mentions to have
happened in the Eastern Magi or Wise Men of
the East, and which at this day sometimes
happens in others : or Satan doth also for some
foregoing submissive Engagement, stir up the
same in Witches : And in such as these, the
Excitation is as it were by a waking sleepiness,
by a Catochus, and therefore is imperfect in
regard of the manner. Evil in regard of the end,
Obscure in regard of the Meanes, and Wicked in
regard of the Author : Nor doth the Turn-coat-
impostor suffer that the Witch should know this
Power to be natural unto her self, whereby he
may hold her the more fast bound to himseK,
or least the exercise of so noble a Power being
stirred up, should incHne otherwise than to
Wickedness, therefore he commands the Rains
himself ; neither hath the Witch known how
to stir it up at her own pleasure, who hath wholly
prostrated her self to the Will of another Tj^ant.
" Also Man himself is able through the Art of
the Cabal, to cause an excitement in himself, of
so great a Power at his own Pleasure, and these
are called Adeptists ; or Obtainers, whose
Governour also, is the Spirit of God." ^
1 "Of the Magnetick or Attractive Curing of Wounds,"
§§ 121-7, Oriatrike, p. 784.
4
50 JOANNES BAPTISTA VAN HELMONT
These ideas, we tliink, are of much interest
in view of the results of modern experimental
research in the domain of abnormal psychology,
especially as concerns the phenomena of telepathy,
hypnotism, telekinensis, and the voluntary pro-
duction of phantasms of the living.
Van Helmont goes even further in his estimate
of the potency of man's magical power, and
suggests that something of this power resides in
the more outward man, so that his flesh and blood
possess a magical efficacy ; on which grounds he
attempts to justify the fantastic ingredients in
Paracelsus's sympathetic ointment, which include
mummy, the moss found upon the skull of a
dead man and the fat of a boar and a bear.
Thus does van Helmont seem, as it were, to
oscillate from the sublime to the ridiculous. In
which of these categories, it may be asked,
ought we to put his assertion that " Nature is on
every side a Magitianess, and acts by her own
Phantasie " ? ^ Almost identically the same
words appear in the Occult Philosophy of Cor-
nehus Agrippa, and Novalis in more recent
years voiced the opinion of both of these old
occult philosophers, when he declared that " All
experience is magic and only magically explic-
able," thereby returning, perhaps, the only
answer that is ultimately possible to the eternal
Why ? of things.
Joseph Ennemoser devotes several pages of
his History of Magic to quotations from van
1 " Of the Magnetick or Attractive Curing of Wounds,"
§ 150, Oriatrike, p. 789 (wrongly numbered 779).
MYSTICISM AND MAGIC 51
Helmont's work on the Magnetic Curing of
Wounds and other writings, adding that they
are so clear in themselves as not to need com-
ment. He refers to an essay deahng with van
Helmont's views concerning " animal magnetism "
by Deleuze, in which the latter intimates that,
whilst he has found many illusory ideas,
superstitious notions and incomprehensible things
in the writings of van Helmont, he has also
found in them many great truths. With this
judgment, all who take the care seriously to
study van Helmont's works will, we think,
agree.
CHAPTER V
ALCHEMICAL ACHIEVEMENTS
(a) Researches on Gases
We have already quoted the very high opinion
of van Helmont as a chemist expressed by
Professor E. von Meyer. Thomson, who, in his
History of Chemistry, deals with van Helmont at
considerable length, indicates " how far his
chemical knowledge was superior to that of the
age in which he lived." ^ James Campbell
Brown writes of him as " a great chemist, un-
doubtedly the greatest prior to Lavoisier." * And
much similar testimony to van Helmont's ability
as a chemical investigator could be quoted from
the works of other authorities.
The first of van Helmont's achievements in
chemistry that calls for attention is his discovery
of the gas now known as carbon dioxide, carbonic
anhydride, or carbonic acid gas. His observa-
tions concerning this substance were, strangely
enough, almost entirely neglected by succeeding
chemists, until Joseph Black, in the middle of the
eighteenth century, rediscovered the gas, naming
it " fixed air." Black has sometimes been
1 Op. cit., p. 186.
8 James Campbell Brown : A History of Chemistry from
the Earliest Times to the Present Day (London, 1913), p. 202.
52
ALCHEMICAL ACHIEVEMENTS 53
erroneously awarded the honour of the discovery,
though he himself refers — not very graciously —
to the previous observations of van Helmont.
It is to van Helmont, indeed, that we owe the
very word gas itself ; natural philosophers
previous to him, and some that came after,
regarded all gaseous substances as being mere
varieties of air. Van Helmont distinguishes
between a vapour, which could be condensed,
and a gas, which could not ; and the distinction
has proved a useful one, though it is now known
not to be valid. In choosing the designation
" gas " he tells us that he had " the Chaos of
the Auntients " ^ in mind. " Gas," he writes,
*' is a far more subtile or fine thing than a vapour,
mist, or distilled Oylinesses, although as yet, it
be many times thicker than Air " * ; and again,
" I call this Spirit, unknown hitherto, by the
new name of Gas, which can neither be con-
strained by Vessels, nor reduced into a visible
body, unless the seed being first extinguished." ^
The origin of the word " gas " is of interest,
and the fact that the concept " spirit " ante-
dated that of " gas " by thousands of years is
significant, because judging by the remarks of
some of the more extreme opponents of philo-
sophic spiritualism, it might be gathered that the
idea of " spirit " is nothing more than an un-
justifiable extension of that of " gas." In point
1 " The Essay of a Meteor," § 28, Oriatrike, p. 69.
» Ibid., § 29.
' " The Fiction of Elementary Complexions and Mix-
tui-es," § U, Oriatrike, p. 106.
54 JOANNES BAPTISTA VAN HELMONT
of fact, we see that the relation between the two
ideas is almost the opposite of this. In the
thought of the old alchemical philosophers, the
distinction between matter and spirit was not
drawn so sharply as has been the case since the
days of Descartes, and their view of the genesis
of inorganic bodies was essentially vitalistic.
"All Beings," writes van Helmont, "do after
some sort partake of life," ^ confirming his views
by quoting from the Scriptures the passage :
" Come let us worship the King by whom all
things live." Many other of the concepts, it
may be noted, upon which materialistic philo-
sophy much prides itself, can be shown to have
their roots in animism.
Van Helmont called carbon dioxide gas, gas
sylvestre, or the wild gas, on account of its
apparent incondensability. He observed that it
is produced when acetic acid acts on calcium
carbonate {i.e. when distilled vinegar acts on
crab stones), by the combustion of wood, coal
and tallow and in the production by fermentation
of wine and beer.^ He noticed its occiu'rence in
mineral waters, and in the stomach, and was
aware of its presence in the Grotto del Cane near
Naples. He observed that the gas extinguished
the burning of a candle ; but he was sadly handi-
capped in his study of gases by the lack of suit-
able apparatus for the collection of such bodies ;
1 " The Gas of the Water," § 37, Oriatrike, p. 75.
* " The Fiction of Elementary Complexions and Mix-
tures," § 14, Oriatrike, p. 106, " Of Flatus's or Windie Blasts
in the Body," §§ 67 and 68; ibid., pp. 426 and 427, and
elsewhere.
ALCHEMICAL ACHIEVEMENTS 55
and in consequence failed to distinguish between
this gas and others which he obtained. Of gases
which, Hke carbon dioxide, are non-supporters of
combustion and themselves incombustible, he
appears to have made sulphur dioxide (formed
when sulphur burns in air), nitrous oxide (laughing
gas), nitrogen peroxide (a red gas, obtained by
the dissolution, in the presence of air, of many
metals in strong nitric acid or aqua fortis) and
probably others. In addition to recording the
occurrence of gas sylvestre in the human stomach,
his works make mention of an inflammable gas
as sometimes being voided by the large intestine.
A further hindrance to the real progress of
his studies was the notion, which he firmly held,
and to which we shaU refer again, that water
was the first matter of aU material things. This
idea, entering into his description of the nature
of gas, makes it confused, since gas had somehow
to be explained as being formed of water.
In " A Vacuum, or emptiness of Nature," van
Hehnont described an interesting experiment,
which nowadays figures in every elementary
textbook of practical chemistry, mth a burning
candle which is placed in a trough partly filled with
water and covered with a jar.^ He reahsed that,
in this experiment, gas was formed, and observed
that the bulk of the air decreased, but failed to
draw correct conclusions from his experiment,
because he was not aware (i) that this gas was
soluble in water, and (ii) that air played a part
in its formation. He was, however, the first
J Oriatrike, pp, 82 ^t seq.
56 JOANNES BAPTISTA VAN HELMONT
rightly to explain the explosive force of gunpowder
as due to the production of gas.^
(6) Eesearches on Conservation
Van Helmont enriched the science of chemistry
by many other valuable observations and experi-
ments, besides those dealing with gases. Especi-
ally to his credit and indicative of his originality
are some in which he seems to have come within
an ace of realising, not only the true nature of
a chemical element as later it was defined by
Boyle, but also the law of its persistence, which
it remained for Lavoisier clearly to formulate in
the early part of the nineteenth century. He
clearly reahsed, in certain instances at any rate,
that metals, for example, continue to exist
throughout a series of chemical metamorphoses.
This was rather a novel notion in his day. It
was, for example, commonly believed by the
alchemists that when iron was immersed in a
solution of blue vitriol it was transmuted into
copper. In van Helmont' s work on the Waters
of the Spa, this idea is controverted ; and he
contributed more than any one else to its demo-
lition, and the substitution for it of the more
rational notion that the copper which is deposited
on the iron was formerly present in the solution.
In this work he also pointed out that silver is
not destroyed when dissolved in nitric acid
{aqua jortis), that it is present in the resulting
liquid and can be reobtained therefrom, in its
1 " The Fiction of Elementary Complesions and Mix-
tures," §§ 22-24, Oriatrike, p. X07.
ALCHEMICAL ACHIEVEMENTS 57
original form, by means of copper.^ Moreover,
he studied the quantitative side of chemical
reactions as well as the quahtative — a fact which
is especially to his credit, seeing how little atten-
tion was paid to the balance in his day, and yet
how much the science of chemistry owes to its
use. One of his most remarkable and valuable
pieces of work was the discovery that from a
given weight of glass, the exact weight of sand
(silica) can be obtained as was used in the pre-
paration of it. 2
(c) The First Matter
The conclusion that van Helmcnt drew from
this last-mentioned experiment may, however,
seem rather surprising and, perhaps, disappoint-
ing to the modern m.an of science, whose views,
unhke those of this seventeenth century thinker,
are mechanistic rather than vitahstic, and who
regards combination, rather than development, as
the essential factor in the evolution of the complex
from the simple. In silica, van Helmont thought
he had discovered elementary earth. He named
it " quellem," and the fact that the same weight
of quellem could be obtained from one of its
1 "A Third Paradox," § 16, Oriatrike, p. 695. Cf. "A
Modern Pharmacapolion and Dispensatory," § 55, ibid.,
p. 467.
2 The method is to fuse the glass with an alkali and then
to precipitate the silica by means of an acid. See " The
Earth," Oriatrike, pp. 50 to 52, and " The Power of Medi-
cines," § 37, ibid., p. 478. Cf. "A Treatise of Fevers,"
ch. XV, § 20 ; ibid., p. 1001, where a quantitative experiment
on mercury is described.
58 JOANNES BAPTISTA VAN HELMONT
compounds as was used in preparing this, led
him to deny to quellem, or earth, any power or
potency in the generation of things. " The sand,
or the Element of the earth," we read in his
works, " doth never concur to natural and
seminal generations." ^ Fire he very rightly
denied to be an element or anything material at
all.^ His treatment of air, as we have already
suggested, is, on the other hand, neither clear
nor satisfactory. He regarded air as being an
element ; but for no very good reason, it was
excluded from his theory of the genesis of material
bodies, and was denied to possess any weight.
Water, as we have already said, he regarded as
being the " first matter," or material cause, of
all things. In substantiation of this theory, he
described many experiments he carried out, one
of which is of much interest. His account of
it is as follows :
" I took an Earthen Vessel, in which I put
200 pounds of Earth that had been dried in a
Furnace, which I moystened with Rain-water,
and I implanted therein the Trunk or Stem of a
Willow Tree, weighing five pounds ; and at
length, five years being finished, the Tree sprung
from thence, did weigh 169 pounds, and about
three ounces : But I moystened the Earthen
Vessel with Rain-water, or distilled water
(alwayes when there was need) and it was large,
1 "The Earth," § 14, Oriatrike, p. 52.
2 " The Elements," § 8, Oriatrike, p. 48, and *' The Earth,"
§ 1, ibid., p. 50.
ALCHEMICAL ACHIEVEMENTS 59
and implanted into the Earth, and least the
dust that flew about should be co-mingled with
the Earth, I covered the lip or mouth of the
Vessel, with a Iron- Plate covered with Tin, and
easily passable with many holes. I computed
not the weight of the leaves that fell off in the
foxu- Autumnes. At length, I again dried the
Earth of the Vessel, and there were found the
same 200 pounds, wanting about two ounces.
Therefore 164 pounds of Wood, Barks, and Roots,
arose out of water onely." ^
It is curious that he should have neglected to
consider the possibiHty of a proportion of the
increased weight being due to material derived
from the air.
(d) The Transmutation of Metals
The final achievement in chemistry, if such it
may be called, with which van Helmont, it seems,
must be credited, is of a most surprising nature.
He claims that he accomplished the transmuta-
tion of base metal into gold, though imacquainted
with the composition of the agent he used to
effect this marvel, which was given to him by a
stranger. Let the account of this extraordinary
occurrence be related in his own words :
" I am constrained," he writes, " to believe
that there is the Stone which makes Gold, and
which makes Silver ; because I have at distinct
1 " The Fiction of Elementary Complexions and Mix-
tures," § 30, Oriatrike, p. 109.
60 JOANNES BAPTISTA VAN HELMONT
turns, made projection with my hand, of one
grain of the Powder, upon some thousand grains
of hot Quick-silver ; and the buisiness succeeded
in the Fire, even as Books do promise ; a Circle
of many People standing by, together with a
tickling Admiration of us all. . . . He who first
gave me the Gold-making Powder, had likewise
also, at least as much of it, as might be sufficient
for changing two hundred thousand Pounds of
Gold : . . . For he gave me perhaps half a grain of
that Powder, and nine omices and three quarters
of Quick-silver were thereby transchanged : But
that Gold, a strange Man, being a Friend of one
evenings acquaintance, gave me." ^
In two other places in his works he refers to
alchemical transmutation as illustrative of the
manner of " the Regeneration of those that are
to be saved, and of the participation of Life in
the Communion of the Eucharist," and tells
how he accomplished it :
" For I have divers times handled that stone
[which makes gold] with my hands, and have
seen a real transmutation of saleable Argen-tvive
or Quicksilver with my eyes, which in proportion
did exceed the powder which made the gold in
some thousand degrees.
" Indeed it was of the colour, such as is in
Saffron, being weighty in its powder, and shining
like bruised Glass. . . . But there was once given
unto me, the fourth part of one grain. I call also
a grain the six hundredth part of an ounce.
1 " The Tree of Life," Oriatrike, p. 807.
ALCHEMICAL ACHIEVEMENTS 61
" This powder therefore I involved in Wax, . . .
least in casting it into the Crucible, it should be
dispersed through the smoakinesses of the coals :
which pellet of wax, I afterwards cast into the
three-corner'd Vessel of a Crucible, upon a pound
of Quicksilver, hot, and newly bought ; and
presently, the whole Quicksilver with some little
noise, stood still from flowing, and resided like
a Lump : But the heat of the Argent- vive, was
as much as might forbid melted lead from re-
coagulating : The Fire being straightway after
increased under the Bellows, the Mettal was
melted, the which the Vessel of fusion being
broken, I found to weigh eight ounces of the
most pure gold.
" Therefore a computation being made, a grain
of that powder doth convert nineteen thousand
two hundred grains of impm^e and volatile Mettal,
which is obliterable by the fire, into true gold.
" For that powder, by uniting with the afore-
said Quicksilver unto it self, preserved the same
at one instant, from an eternal rust, putrefaction,
death, and torture of the fire, howsoever most
violent it was, and made it as an Immortal
thing, against any vigour and industry of Art
and Fire, and transchanged it into the Virgin
purity of Gold." ^
We have here the testimony to the reality of
alchemical transmutation of a man w^ho was no
1 " The Position is Demonstrated," § 58, Oriatrike, p. 674.
Cf. " Life Eternal," Oriatrike, pp. 751 and 752, where the
account is repeated in almost the same words and with
the same religiovis motive.
62 JOANNES BAPTISTA VAN HELMONT
impostor claiming to have discovered the great
secret of the Philosopher's Stone and desirous of
gaining credit for his claims, but one whose whole
life was animated by philanthropic motives, and
whose good faith is above question. His know-
ledge of chemical phenomena was, no doubt,
very defective judged by the light of modern
science, and his theories contain much that is
fantastic ; but we must, at least, regard him as
having been a sufficiently good chemist to have
been able to distinguish real gold from a spurious
imitation of it. In any case, however, modern
science is acquainted with no reagent which, in
the proportions stated, would convert mercury
into any substance resembling gold in the least.
There is nothing more extraordinary in the
works of van Helmont, or in the whole literature
of alchemy, than the words we have quoted —
though there are one or two passages in other
writers which parallel them. Modern scientific
research has demonstrated the fact of the evolu-
tion of the elements of the inorganic world, and
thus indicates the possibility of transmutation.
Not only, however, is the method of achieving
this unknown, but nothing even approximating
to van Helmont's transmutations is indicated as
remotely possible. Dare we draw the conclusion
that there are phenomena unknown to modern
science with which the old-time alchemists were
acquainted — forces unknown to-day which they
manipulated ?
The elusive alchemical adept who wrote under
the name of Eirenseus Philalethes had a high
ALCHEMICAL ACHIEVEMENTS 63
opinion of van Helmont ; and with a quotation
from his works relative to the subject of our
study and a few remarks arising therefrom this
chapter may weU close. " Eirenaeus Phila-
lethes," after stating that of none of van Helmont 's
experiments is he ignorant, wrote :
" What I most honour in that noble Naturalist
is, that he did search out the Occulta Naturce,
more accurately than ever any did in the World.
So that (setting aside the skill of this Mastery
[namely, that of the preparation of the Philo-
sopher's Stone], of which I cannot find any foot-
steps in what of his is extant) I am confident he
was without flattery Nature's Privy- Counsellor,
and for Philosophical verity might have com-
manded this Secret ; but God doth not reveal
all to all men, yet who knows what he may live
to be Master of in this point too.
" This I speak not to flatter him, who (besides
what is evident to the whole World in his Writings)
have no other character of him, and to him I am
like to remain a perpetual Stranger ; yet could
as heartily desire his acquaintance, as any man's
I know in the World, and if the Fates prevent
not mine intentions, by mine or his death, I
shall endeavour familiarity with him."^
When these words saw the light of publication,
the subject of them was already dead, but it is
pleasing to speculate, if we may be allowed to
1 " Eirenseus Philalethes" : Ripley Revived (London,
1677), pp. 279 and 280.
64 JOANNES BAPTISTA VAN HELMONT
assume, not only " Eirenseus Philalethes's "
adeptship, but his attainment of it at a very
early age/ that in the meantime he may have
met van Helmont and have been the stranger
responsible for the gift of the philosophic Stone.
There is no evidence, however, and the whole
question of the stranger's identity is shrouded in
seemingly impenetrable darkness.
1 He appears to have been born in 1623. For further
details concerning this extraordinary personage see H. S.
Redgrove's Alchemy : Ancient and Modern, § 60, and the
authorities there referred to.
CHAPTER VI
THE ADVANCEMENT OF THE HEALING ART
(a) Physiology
For van Helmont, all other sciences were sub-
servient to that science or art (whichever one
prefers to call it : it is, indeed, both) which has
for its end the healing of the manifold diseases
to which mankind is heir, and the prolongation
of hmnan life. To cure disease necessitates an
understanding of the nature of disease, and in
order to understand the nature of disease, a
knowledge is essential of the structure of the
human body and the functions of its parts.
During the early part of the seventeenth century
there was a considerable awakening of interest
in physiological and anatomical investigation,
many important researches being undertaken
and many important discoveries being thereby
made. On the whole, van Helmont does not
seem to have profited as much as one might have
expected by the work in physiology of the more
progressive of his contemporaries. Harvey's
book announcing the discovery of the circulation
of the blood, for example, was published in 1628,
but either van Helmont did not read it, or,
alternatively, did not accept its conclusions.
With the Galenists he still thought that blood
(of different degrees of purity) was conveyed from
the heart to the various organs by both arteries
5 65
66 JOANNES BAPTISTA VAN HELMONT
and veins ; he did not realise the true nature
of the function of respiration, though he rightly
rejected the current view which supposed the
function of the inspired air to be chiefly that of
cooHng the extreme heat of the heart ; and,
with his orthodox brethren, he beheved, in spite
of its evident impossibility, in the passage of
blood through the septum from the right to the
left ventricle of the heart, going so far, indeed,
as to invent a mechanism to explain why the
blood could only pass through the septum in
this direction whereas the hypothetical vital
spirits could also pass contrariwise. On the
other hand, van Helmont's contribution to
physiology was of no little importance. It is
true, perhaps, that the iatrochemists tended to
over-emphasise the purely chemical aspect of the
functions of hving organisms, but it was certainly
better that this aspect should be over-emphasised
than that it should be neglected. Moreover, whilst
Paracelsus postulated hypothetical chemical
principles — ^his salt, sulphur and mercury — ^in the
human body, van Helmont sought, by such
means as were at his disposal, to identify the
actual chemical nature of the various juices.
In the chapter on " Mysticism and Magic " his
physiological views have already been touched
upon, and the doctrine of archei, which he adopted
from Paracelsus, has been briefly described.
According to van Helmont, the whole of the
economy of the human body is controlled by a
hierarchy of these quasi-spiritual principles,
chief of them aU being the archeus of the stomach.
THE HEALING ART 67
The stomach he regarded as the most important
organ of the body, or rather the stomach and
spleen taken together, for it was in the spleen
that van Helmont thought that the digestive
juice of the stomach was formed. The stomach,
according to liim, cannot act without the spleen,
and to these two organs he gave the name
" duumvirate," to indicate that therefrom is the
government of the whole body.
Against the doctrine of the four humours van
Helmont fulminated, though, as we have already
seen, it was not possible for him to free himself
entirely from all the errors of the orthodox
medical teaching of his day, from which his notion
of the passage of a secretion from the spleen to the
stomach was presumably borrowed. In particular
he accused the Galenists of treating the bile as an
excrement. Van Hehnont — as we shall see in a
moment — grasped something of the true nature of
this fluid and the important part it plays in
digestion, and his arguments against the view that
it is excrementous are both ingenious and con-
vincing. He regarded the bile as being made in
the gaU- bladder (which he called "a noble bowel "),
" materially of the pure blood of the Liver, and
efficiently by the proper Archeus of the Gaul." *
Van Hehnont s great contribution to physiology
is the theory he puts forward concernuig the
nature of digestion, which, in spite of many de-
fects, is in some of its features identical with
that held to-day. According to the curxcnt view
^ "A Passive Deceiving and Ignorance of the Schooles,
the Humourists," ch. iii, § 14, Oriatrike, p. 1048.
68 JOANNES BAPTISTA VAN HELMONT
of his time the prime agent in digestion was
thought to be heat : digestion was envisaged
as a process of coction, achieving the solution
of foodstuffs in a manner similar to that in which
the housewife prepares soup from meat and
vegetables. Van Helmont points out the im-
possibility of this. He indicates that the powers
of digestion are not only different in different
animals, but even in different individual members
of the same species, which would hardly be the
case if heat were the sole agent effecting it.
Certain animals, at any rate, can digest sub-
stances which by no mere process of cooking can
be reduced to a solution. Moreover, in fevers,
when the heat of the body is increased, the
powers of digestion are not improved, but rather
impaired. With true insight, van Helmont likens
the process of digestion to that whereby wine is
made from grapes or beer from barley. By means
of fermentations the archei of foods are conquered
by the digestive archeus of man, and nourish-
ment is transmuted into blood. He writes :
" Heat is not the Authour of digestion, but
there is a certain other vitail faculty which doth
truly, and formally transchange nourishments :
And that I have designed by the name of Fer-
ments," wisely adding, " but there are many
Ferments in us." ^ Previous writers, as Sir
Llichael Foster indicates in his lucid exposition
of van Helmont's physiological doctrines, " had
caught hold of the phenomena of the fermenting
^ " Heat doth not digest efficiently, but only excitatively
or by way of stirring up," §§ 29 and 30, Oriatrike, p. 202.
THE HEALING ART 69
wine- vat, as being, though mysterious in them-
selves, illustrative of the still more mysterious
phenomena of the living body " : van Helmont
made it the basis of his system, and "was the first to
attempt a connected exposition of these matters." ^
The nature of fermentation is still very little
understood. Ferments appear to be highly
complex chemical substances which are capable,
under suitable conditions, of causing certain
specific chemical reactions to take place in
quantities of other substances quite disproportion-
ately large in comparison with that of the ferment.
The alcoholic fermentation of grape-sugar and
of malt, as well as the various complicated
processes constituting digestion, are known to be
achieved by means of such substances. The
various ferments have, in many cases, been
isolated, and the precise conditions under which
they act and the changes they effect have been
discovered. But modern science is not really
much wiser as concerns the rationale of their
action than was van Helmont. ^ It is especially
1 Sir Michael Foster : Lectures on the History of Physiology
during the Sixteenth, Seventeenth and Eighteenth Centuries
<Camb., 1901), p. 135.
2 The following very brief account of the digestive ferments
an man may be of interest to the general reader. The first
of the ferments which comes into operation is ptyalin, which
occurs in the saliva and causes the conversion of starch
into malt-sugar. The gastric juice contains two ferments,
pepsin and rennin. This juice is secreted by the mucous
anembranes of the stomach as required and contains about
0'2 per cent, of hydrochloric acid. In the presence of this
acid, pepsin converts other proteids into a very soluble
proteid called peptone, whilst rennin causes milk to clot.
The pancreatic juice, secreted by the pancreas and dis-
70 JOANNES BAPTISTA VAN HELMONT
to his credit that he clearly realised that fer-
mentation is a process far more complex and
subtle than are ordinary chemical reactions.
A ferment will act, according to him, only under
special conditions peculiar to itself ; thus, the
ferment in the stomach, for example, will act
only in a sour or acid solution, whilst the bile,
on the other hand, is salt, or, as we should now
say, alkaline, which alkahnity is necessary for
the operation of its own ferment, but is inimical
to that of the ferment of the stomach. All this
is in close agreement in every particular with the
teachings of modern physiology. Van Helmont,
however, never suspected the presence of a fer-
ment in the saliva, and he was unacquainted
with the functions of the pancreas.
Digestion, according to van Helmont, is
accomplished by means of six processes. The
first digestion takes place in the stomach, where
charged into the duodenum, contains three ferments, which
respectively convert starch into sugar, change other proteids
into peptone, and effect the saponification of fats. The
pancreatic juice is alkaline, owing to the presence in it of
sodium carbonate, and its ferments are only effective in an
alkaline medium. Bile also is alkaline. This is secreted
by the liver, stored in the gall-bladder and discharged into
the duodenum, when required, together with the pancreatic
juice. Along with other constituents, it contains certain
salts which facilitate the saponification of fats. Dviring
absorption in the small intestine, the malt-sugar undergoes
a further fermentation, being changed into glucose, whilst
the peptone is converted into the special proteids of the
blood. The undigested foodstuff undergoes a final fermen-
tation in the large intestine, where it is converted into
fseces by the agency of certain micro-organisms.
The ferments producing alcoholic fermentation are, of
course, as van Helmont realised, quite different substances
from the ferments effecting digestion.
THE HEALING ART 71
the food is acted upon by the pecuhar ferment
which the spleen discharges into the stomach,
and which acts in an acid solution. When this
digestion is completed, the pylorus allows the
passage of the soiu* cream (or, as we now say,
chyme) into the duodenum, where its acidity is
neutralised by the bile and a further digestion is
accomplished by means of the bihary ferment.
The third digestion is accomplished by means of
a ferment supplied by the liver, and, beginning
in the mesenteric veins, is completed in that
organ. By means of this digestion, the archeus
of the food is finally subdued, and the alkaline
chyle is converted into venous blood. Aselli,
we may note, had already announced his dis-
covery of the lacteals, but van Helmont makes
no use of it ; and his theory of digestion as
concerns the third, fourth and fifth stages is
largely hjrpothetical. It is interesting to note,
however, that he says that the faeces are formed
from the refuse of the food incapable of absorp-
tion by the mesenteric veins by means of a further
fermentation in the large intestines.
By means of the fourth and fifth digestions,
according to van Helmont, the venous blood of
the liver is successively purified, being first con-
verted into arterial blood and then vitalised.
He does not very clearly distinguish between
the two processes. His view appears to be that
this purification commences whilst the venous
blood is passing from the liver to the heart, and
is completed in the latter organ. The agent is
the vital spirit which, always present in the left
72 JOANNES BAPTISTA VAN HELMONT
ventricle of the heart, is able to percolate through
the septum into the right ventricle, where, acting
as a ferment, it transmutes the blood into its
own nature. As we have mentioned, he supposes
the blood to pass from the right to the left
ventricle, but not otherwise. The air taken into
the lungs by the act of breathing, he assumes to
act as an incentive to this purificatory fermenta-
tion of the blood.
His sixth and last digestion occurs in the
various members and organs of the body. Each
of them contains its own ferment by means of
which the nourishment proper to each is prepared
from the blood. He writes :
" At length the sixth and last Digestion is
perfected in all the particular Kitchins of the
Members : And there are as many stomacks, as
there are members nourishable. Indeed, in this
Digestion, the in-bred spirit in every place, doth
Cook its own nourishment for it seKe ; under
which Digestion, as there are divers dispositions
incident, so also divers errors of those disposi-
tions do happen : And so the diseases which the
Schools do attribute unto their four feigned
humom's, should rather be owing imto things
transchanged : But I call things transchanged,
dispositions, which afterwards do in the Arterial
blood, consequently succeed into the true nour-
ishment of the solid parts." ^
Sir Michael Foster well describes this sixth
digestion as "a remarkable generalisation, by
1 " A sixfold digestion of humane nourishment," §§ 67
and 68, Oriatrike, p. 219.
THE HEALING ART 73
which van Helmont leaps ahead, and anticipates
conclusions which were not reached until many a
long year after him." ^
The watery part of the blood, or serum in the
terminology of modern science, van Helmont
calls the " latex." It is " the one only humour."
" The Schools indeed," he writes, " have made
mention of it under the name of the Whey of the
Bloud, and have made it common as weU to Urine
as to Sweat." ^ His own views concerning this
substance mark a great advance on those of the
Galenists. Latex, he points out, must be in-
cluded amongst, not " Excrements, but profitable
juices." It is only when it has undergone a
specific fermentation in the kidneys that latex
becomes urine ; whilst sweat is latex that has
washed out from the body " a superfluous salt."
Altogether, van Helmont's work on the latex
ranks with that on digestion as a contribution
to physiological science of the greatest value.
{b) Pathology
On the basis of the physiological doctrines we
have sketched above van Hehnont erected his
theory concerning the cause and cure of disease.
He clearly realised that a study merely of the
symptoms of a disease was not adequate to its
mastery, and that it was necessary to trace
diseases to their first beginnings and to lay bare
their roots. Disease, he held, is not merely a
negative thing, not merely a defect of structure
I Op. cif., p. 140.
* " The Humour Latex, neglected," § 2, Oriatrike, p. 373.
74 JOANNES BAPTISTA VAN HELMONT
or function ; nor can any disproportion in the
humours of Galenical theory be assigned as its
cause. A dead man, in his opinion, cannot
correctly be said to suffer from a disease. Disease
is something that attacks life ; and must there-
fore have its roots in the seat of life, that is, the
archeus. Diseases, according to him, fall into
two categories, namely, (i) those that are produced
through some inherent defect in the archeus —
such as all hereditary diseases — ^and (ii) those
which arise as a result of some external agent,
which, stirring up a morbid idea in the archeus,
causes it to deviate from its normal activity and
behave in a harmful manner. Amongst such
external agents, the operations of witchcraft are
assigned a place of importance.
All diseases, therefore, according to van
Helmont, have their seat in the archeus. He
writes as follows :
" A Disease therefore is a certain Being, bred,
after that a certain hurtful strange power hath
violated the vital Beginning, and hath pierced the
faculty hereof, and by piercing hath stirred up
the Archeus unto Indignation, Fury, Fear, d^c.
To wit, the anguish, and troubles of which per-
turbations do by imagining, stir up an Idea
co-like unto themselves, and a due Image :
Indeed that Image is readily stamped, expressed,
and sealed in the Archeus, and being cloathed
with him, a Disease doth presently enter on the
stage, being indeed composed of an Archeal Body,
and an efficient Idea : For the Archeus produceth
THE HEALING ART 75
a dammage unto himseK, the which when he
hath once admitted, he straightway also after-
wards yields, flees, or is alienated, or dethroned,
or defiled through the importunity thereof, and
is constrained to undergo a strange government,
and domestically to sustain a civil War raised
up on himself ; indeed such a strange Image, is
materially imprinted, and arising out of the
Archeus : A true Diseasie Being I say, which is
caUed a Disease." ^
Van Helmont rightly teaches that to cure a
disease it is useless merely to alleviate its symp-
toms ; what is necessary is that such remedies
shaU be used as will act upon or influence the
archeus. He wTites :
" A Disease is primitively overcome, by ex-
tinguishing of the Idea, or a removal of the
essential matter thereof. 2. Originally, by allay-
ing and pacifjdng of the disturbed Archeus. And
3. From a latter thing ; to wit, if the occasional
matter be taken away, which stirs up a motive
and alterative Bias of entertainment, that the
Idea or Disease, may be efficiently made." ^
Such views as these may seem somewhat
fantastic to modern thought, but they mark a
great advance upon those of the ancients, and in
certain respects approximate to those of modern
science. As ]\Ir. E. T. Withington well points
1 " The birth or original of a Diseasie Image," § 2, Oriatrike,
p. 552,
2 " A Disease is an unknown Guest," § 77 (5), Oriatrike,
p. 500.
76 JOANNES BAPTISTA VAN HELMONT
out, " there is much valuable truth " in van
Helmont's pathological doctrines when they are
" divested of the fantastic language " in which
their author expressed them ^ ; and van Hel-
mont's detailed application of these doctrines to
the various diseases which he investigated contains
much that is interesting and even illuminating.
As we have seen, he wrote special treatises on
Fevers, the Disease of the Stone, and the Plague ;
and there are interesting chapters in his collected
works deaUng with other diseases, such as dropsy,
gout, and what the Galenists called " catarrh."
Concerning the dropsy, he writes as follows :
" The Dropsie therefore, is a Disease occa-
sionally arisen from a bloody depraved matter,
as it were from a fermental Beginning : at whose
incitements, the Archeus of the Reins formeth an
Idea of indignation ; through the power whereof,
he shuts up the Urine-pipes, and Veins, corrupts
and diverts the abounding Latex [serum], and
transmits this Latex into the compass of the
Abdomen or nether part of the Belly ; in the mean
time he so straitens the pores of these Membranes
of the Abdomen, that they can let nothing of
all thorow them even until Death." ^
Gout, according to him, arises through anger
of the archeus of the stomach, causing it to dis-
perse the acid digestive fluid into remote places
of the body, thereby producing a " siclmess of
1 Edward Theodore Withington : Medical History from
the Earliest Times : A Pojfnilar History of the Healing Art
(London, 1904), p. 307.
* " The Dropsie is Unknown," § 42, Oriatrike, p. 520
THE HEALING ART 77
the joints." ^ Pleurisy has a similar origin :
*'for as sharpness [acidity] in the stomack, is an
acceptable, and ordinary savour ; so out of the
Btomack all sharpness is besides nature, and
hostile, which," adds van Hehnont, " hath been
hitherto unknown in the Schools." *
His views concerning " catarrhs " and allied
complaints are of much interest. The Galenists
regarded various forms of catarrh as the result
of phlegm distilhng to the head and there becom-
ing condensed. Van Helmont ridicules this
theory. The mucus of the nose and throat,
according to him, is produced by a local archeus,
its object being the protecting of the tissues
from irritation. Excessive irritation, however,
causes this archeus to behave recklessly. He
becomes, in van Helmont's quaint language, " an
erring watchman or wandering keeper," ^ and
produces mucus or phlegm in too great abundance
and of bad quality, the voiding of which entails
coughing, spitting and other impleasant effects.
Van Helmont's treatment of fevers has much
in it that is commendable. The currently held
opinion that, in fevers, the blood undergoes
putrefaction he rightly rejects. Heat, he indi-
cates, is not the cause of a fever, but one of its
symptoms, due to the disordered activity of the
1 " Short Life," and " The Disease that was antiently
reckoned that of dehghtful Livers," Oriatrike, pp. 747 et seq.,
and pp. 386 e/ seq.
2 " A Raging or Mad Pleura," § 14, Oriatrike, p. 395.
3 " An erring watchman, or a wandering keeper," and
" The Toyes or Dotages of a Catarrhe or Rheume," Oriatrike^
pp. 254 et seq., and pp. 429 et seq.
78 JOANNES BAPTISTA VAN HELMONT
archeus. The archeus attempts to throw off the
enemy that is attacking it by rigours and trem-
bling, but, not being successful, becomes enraged
and thus produces feverish heat. As Mr. Withing-
ton has ably put it, well bringing out the essential
truth in van Helmont's theory, " Fever is the
effort of the chief Archeus to get rid of some
irritant, just as local inflammation is the reaction
of the local Archeus to some injury." ^ The
intermittent character of certain fevers, according
to van Helmont, is due to the fact that the
archeus, like a wrestler, pauses to take breath, in
order that he may the better " shake off the
Fever his enemy." ^
His work on the disease of the stone is not
less interesting. Paracelsus, observing the for-
mation in wine-barrels of a hard deposit from
the wine — ^tartar, or argol ^ — assumed the presence
of this or of allied substances in food and drink
generally, and attributed thereto the causation
of many diseases, especially that of the stone.
The term " tartar " as applied to the incrustation
which forms on the teeth is a remnant which still
parsists of the Paracelsian doctrine. This theory
of tartar as present in all food and drink and as a
cause of disease, van Helmont hotly contested.
He pointed out that the tartar of wine could be
dissolved by boiling water, which is not true of
stones formed in the bladder. He sought by
chemical means to arrive at a true understanding
1 O'p. ciL, p. 306.
2 " A Treatise of Fevers," ch. ix, §§ 1-6, Oriatrike, pp. 973
and 974.
3 The substance is crude potassium hydrogen tartrate.
THE HEALING ART 79
of the nature and cause of these stones : and
although the chemistry of the seventeenth
century was not sufficiently advanced for him
to achieve success, he certainly pointed the
direction in which more successful research was
to proceed. He was, w^e should mention, the
inventor of an improved catheter.
The Plague, according to van Helmont, is
caused by a poisonous gas, which stirs up an idea
of terror in the archeus. But it may, he says,
result as the product of foreboding and the terror
of infection alone, for the imagination is of
exceeding potency, as is evident, to use an
illustration he employs on numerous occasions,
in the case of a pregnant woman, who, through
her imagination, imprints on her offspring a mark,
such as that of a cherry. His work on the Plague is
marred by many superstitious notions, such as the
belief that a useful " zenexton " or prophylactic
can be made from dried toads, and cannot,
perhaps, be regarded as so useful a contribution
to medical science as his other medical writings.
(c) Therapeutics
In view of the importance attached to the
stomach and the function of digestion in the
physiology of van Helmont, we might naturally
expect him to have been a keen dietetist. Such,
however, was not the case. Scoffing at all
others, he laid down one rule of diet only, namely,
that of moderation :
" Let the Supream defence of Long Life
(although it be a cruel thing to those that are
80 JOANNES BAPTISTA VAN HELMONT
unaccustomed) be Sobriety : Otherwise, those
things which favour, do noiurish best ; and a
hungry Man will easily concoct those Foods
which do favour him most." ^
If, however, as seems to be the case, van
Helmont failed to appreciate the importance of
dietetics, which was not unrecognised by other
physicians of his day, he more than compensated
for this by his exposure, in his work on Fevers
and elsewhere, of the gross folly of the blood-
letting and purging which for long had been, and
still were, the two most favoured means of
treatment for almost every ill to which flesh is
heir. On one occasion he wrote that he feared
that " unless the Lord shall avert it . . . the Life
of Mortals will dayly be shortned, and at length
to pass unto the Grave in its green eare, through
the Offence of Cutting of a Vein, andPurgings," *
and in one of his denunciations of the physicians
of his day, he declared that " a bloody Moloch "
sits " president in the Chairs of Medicine." '
His fear was not an exaggerated one ; his indict-
ment of the Galenists not mijust. Blood-letting
and excessive purging, those fetishes of old-time
medical practice, must have claimed innumerable
victims, many of whom, perhaps, might have
recovered from their illnesses by means merely
of Nature's recuperative powers unaided ; and the
science of medicine is under a deep debt of gratitude
1 " A Sixth Paradox," § 6, Oriatrike, p. 702.
2 " A Preface," Oriatrike, p. 631.
3 " A Mad or Raging Pleura," § 34, Oriatrike, p. 399.
CJ. •' The Toyes of a Catarrhe or Rheume," § 35, ibid., p. 439.
THE HEALING ART 81
to van Helmont for pointing out how brutal and
pernicious these practices were and for indicating
better means for the combatting of disease.
Although van Helmont differed from Paracelsus
in so many points, both in his views concerning
the origin and nature of disease, and in his
chemical theories, yet he appears to have fol-
lowed him very closely in his therapeutics. It
was Paracelsus, in all probabihty, who first
introduced the use of laudanum in medicine,
and to him especially is due the employment of
mercurial and antimonial preparations as internal
remedies, a practice violently condemned by the
Galenists, who indeed hardly dared to use such
drugs externally. Van Helmont made consider-
able use of these valuable and potent medicines ;
and wine, also, he highly commended. These,
according to him, are such agents as serve to
pacify and to appease the archeus, to regulate its
functions and, above all, to assist it in over-
coming the powers of disease. He also employed
many other medicines of diverse character,
including herbal preparations, concerning which
much curious and interesting (if not always
entirely reliable) information is to be found
scattered in his works. But he cordially detested
the concoctions of the apothecaries of his day,
nauseating to the taste and composed, in many
cases, of innumerable ingredients, compounded
together in the hope that if one did not effect a
cure another would ; and, like Paracelsus, he
roundly accused the apothecaries (altogether
justly) of adulterating their drugs.
6
82 JOANNES BAPTISTA VAN HELMONT
Some medicines, such as spices, van Helmont
tells us, act on the archeus by means of their
sweet odours or pleasant tastes. Certain drugs
remove impurities ; others, he writes, " do move
the Archeus, not so much by cleansing and
sequestring Impurities, as by appeasing his
Griefs, Disturbances, and a continual and succes-
sive substituting of Nourishing Idea's." ^ It is
especially interesting to note that he suggests
the use of alkaline substances in the treatment of
those maladies he considers to be due to an excess
of acid, such as gout and pleurisy ; whilst in the
case of fevers he wisely advocates sudorifics,
such as mercurials.
Van Helmont is somewhat reticent in his
writings concerning the preparation of the more
important of the remedies he used. He praises
highly the Arcana or secret remedies of Paracelsus,
three of which, namely, the Liquor Alkahest, ^
the Tincture of Lile (an antimonial preparation)
and Diaphoretic Mercury, he says are capable of
curing every disease. The preparation and
properties of the last mentioned, which he also
calls "Horizontal Gold," are described in
chapter xiv of his treatise on Fevers, and some
further particulars are given in chapter viii of the
1 '* In Words, Herbs, and Stones, there is great Virtue,"
Oriatrike, p. 583.
' It is to be regretted that modern commentators have, in
many instances, so far misinterpreted the somewhat hyper-
boHc language of the alchemists as to assign properties to
this preparation which were not really claimed for it by
practical men like van Helmont, and which it is easy to
show it could not possess. Van Helmont' s Liquor Alkahest
was possibly a strong solution of potassium carbonate.
THE HEALING ART 83
work on the Disease of the Stone. The account
is not particularly clear, but apparently the drug
was mercurous chloride or calomel. Concerning
the manner of making the Liquor Alkahest and
the Tincture of Lile, van Helmont is silent.
Others, he says, must learn philosophy as he has
done, namely, by experiment. He writes:
" For God sels Arts to Sweats. For nothing
in Alchymical things is written to that intent
that they may be promiscuously understood by
all, but onely, that they may not be understood :
And that thing, Chymistry hath alwayes observed
singular to it, before other Disciplines, by the
Command of God ; least Roses should be spread
before Men, and Swine : For our Writings are
in stead of Exhortations, that every one may
profit by his own Labours, as much as shall be
indulged him from above." ^
Another remedy he favoured was mercuric oxide
(red oxide of mercury), which he called " Arcanum
corallinum," no doubt because of its colour.
(d) The Elixir of Life
In common with other alchemists, van Hehnont
believed in that marvel of old-time medical theory,
the EUxir of Life. But in contradistinction to the
majority of them he denied it to be the same
substance as the Philosopher's Stone or a pre-
paration thereof. It is distinguished by him
from the Arcana of Paracelsus, as being, not a
1 "A Childish Vindication of the Humorists," § 5,
Oriatrike, p. 623.
84 JOANNES BAPTISTA VAN HELMONT
drug for the curing of disease, but a means of
preserving life and its faculties unimpaired by
the ravages of age.
Van Helmont says that this Elixir can be
obtained by extracting the essential essence of
the wood of the imperishable cedar of Lebanon
by means of the Liquor Alkahest of Paracelsus.
Another preservative of life that he mentions is
the distilled liquor of sulphur, i.e. a solution of
sulphurous acid. He says that, in the year 1600,
a man, then fifty-eight years old (concerning whom
the name and some particulars are mentioned),
begged of him " some defence of life." He pre-
scribed a daily dose of two drops of this liquor, and
records that as a result of its use the man was alive
and in good health forty-one years later, without
having experienced any illness in the meantime.^
To cure disease and to preserve life : such are
the great objects of medicine ; but the philo-
sopher is continually haunted by the question,
What is this mysterious something which we
call Life ? Van Helmont compares it to light.
" The life of man," he says, " is a formall light,"
pointing out, however, that this is an analogy
only, and not altogether satisfactory. Of life
itself he writes as follows :
" Although God had she wen to any one the
essence of life in a composed Body ; yet he will
never give his own honour of teaching it, unto
any Creature ; Seeing life in the abstract, is the
incomprehensible God himseK." ^
1 " The Tree of Life," Oriatrike, pp. 813 and 814.
2 " The Bias of Man," § 22, Oriatrike, p. 179.
THE HEALING ART 85
Perhaps this is the only answer possible to
the great question " What is life ? " and per-
haps this is the answer which biological science
— although its present mien may seem somewhat
materialistic — may ultimately achieve.
We suppose that the works of van Helmont are
rarely if ever read nowadays, save perhaps by
those who have made the history of science their
especial concern. Indeed, it must be confessed
that many of his chapters are tedious reading,
dealing as they do with forgotten controversies
that have lost their significance. Nor does the
manner of FranciscusMercurius's editing (or rather
lack of editing) add to their attractiveness. The
latter seems, indeed, to have flung together the
various chapters, both of previously published
books and those which were new, with little if
any regard to their contents, and with no indica-
tion as to the order in which they were written.
The patient reader of these works, however, wiU
certainly not be unrewarded. Apart from their
great scientific interest, the revelation they pro-
vide of a noble character — remarkable for lofti-
ness of motive and sincerity of purpose — of a
man altogether animated by the desire to do
good to his fellow-men, a true and impassioned
lover of God — is of great and permanent value.
Moreover, ever and anon van Helmont's genius
flashes out, and the reader cannot but be as-
tounded at his originality. Never was man less
afraid of unorthodoxy, never less anxious to
show agreement between his own thought and
86 JOANNES BAPTISTA VAN HELMONT
that of his contemporaries. He dehghted to call
his ideas by the name of " paradoxes," and to
refer to his doctrines as " unheard of." This,
no doubt, was not the best way to gain acceptance
for them, and we have learnt what a storm of
opposition he aroused. Yet it would be an error
to suppose that all his scientific contemporaries
were so dense as not to appreciate something of
his greatness. " Eirenseus Philalethes " was not
alone in his encomium of van Helmont. Nicolas
Lefevre, for example, an alchemist and physician
who enriched chemical science with a number of
valuable observations, and whose A Compendious
Body of Chymistry was published in London
shortly after van Helmont died, wrote in the
Preface thereto : " We should prove ungrateful!
to our Age, and the memory of a most worthy
and charitable Physician ... if we should passe
by unmentioned the subtil Van Helmont lately
deceased," and, coupling his name with that of
the illustrious Glauber, spoke of the two men as
" Beacons and Lights which we are to follow in the
Theory of Chymistry and the best practice of it." ^
A light for the guidance of those that came after
him : no higher word of praise is possible, and
of Joannes Baptista van Helmont no truer word
has been written.
1 Nicolas Lefevre (Nicasius le Febure) : A Compendious
Body of Chymistry . . . Rendred into English, by P. D. C, Esq.
(London, 1664), pp. 3 and 4.
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