Hellenbach, Baron

An Encyclopaedia of Occultism (1920)

(See Germany .) Helmont, John Baptista van, must be ranked as one of the pioneers of science by reason of his experimental researches, his acute judgment, his penetrating attitude of mind leading him to say Names do not trouble me, I contemplate the thing in itself as near as I can," and his untiring search for the truth, not for personal aggrandizement or power, but in the service of progress and for the good of mankind. He was born of a noble family in the year 1557 at Bois-le-Duc in Brabant. Studying at Louvain, he early attained distinction in the science of mathematics, lecturing on physics at the age of seventeen. Before he was twenty-two he had read Hippocrates and the Greek and Arabian authors and become eminent in the doctrines of Aristotle and Galen and the practice of medicine according to Vopiscus and Plempius. In the year 1599 he took his degree of doctor of medicine. After this some years were spent in the practice of physic, but meeting a follower of Paracelsus he became interested in his theories of chemical medicine to such a degree that he retired to the castle of Vilvord, near Brussels, to spend the rest of his life in the study of experimental chemistry on which he wrote various treatises, becoming famous throughout Europe for his scientific knowledge. He revolutionized medicine as known in his day, turning aside from the theories of Galen and the Arabs , and created an epoch in the history of physiology, being the first to recognize the functions of the stomach and its relation to the other organs of the body. His many and varied experiments led him to deal with aerial fluids, to which he gave the name of gas-carbonic acid gas being his discovery -and it is said that without him the chemistry of steel in all probability would have been unknown to science. The writings of van Helmont contain many truths, foreshadowings of ideas and principles now accepted as indispensable commonplaces, though these almost of necessity are hidden under much of the incomprehensible beliefs and illusions prevalent in his time. Alchemy , with its visions of the Elixir of Life and the Philosopher's Stone represented to him another field for experiment and research and though he never pretended to the art of making the transmuting powder, he testified his belief in the transmutation of metals, having seen the experiment performed many times. Among other things he became a firm believer in Mineral and Human Magnetism, anticipating Mesmer in almost the very terms of the later exponent of the theory and basing his argument on the well-known facts of the sympathy or antagonism spontaneously arising between individuals and the influence exerted by a firm will over a weak imagination. To the last he declined to leave his retirement, though his fame brought him flattering invitations and offers from the Emperor and Elector Palatine. Almost unknown to his neighbours he yet attended any stricken by illness without accepting any fees for his services. He lived to the age of sixty-seven, dying at his castle of Vilvord in 1624.