VOLUME XIII, SLICE III✦

HELMONT, JEAN to HERNOSAND

ARTICLES IN THIS SLICE:

HELMONT, JEAN BAPTISTE VAN HENRY, ROBERT HELMSTEDT HENRY, VICTOR HELMUND HENRY, WILLIAM HELM WIND HENRYSON, ROBERT HELOTS HENSCHEL, GEORGE HELPS, SIR ARTHUR HENSELT, ADOLF VON HELSINGBORG HENSLOW, JOHN STEVENS HELSINGFORS HENSLOWE, PHILIP HELST, BARTHOLOMAEUS VAN DER HENTY, GEORGE ALFRED HELSTON HENWOOD, WILLIAM JORY HELVETIC CONFESSIONS HENZADA HELVETII HEPBURN, SIR JOHN HELVETIUS, CLAUDE ADRIEN HEPHAESTION (Macedonian general) HELVIDIUS PRISCUS HEPHAESTION (Alexandrian grammarian) HELY-HUTCHINSON, JOHN HEPHAESTUS HELYOT, PIERRE HEPPENHEIM HEMANS, FELICIA DOROTHEA HEPPLEWHITE, GEORGE HEMEL HEMPSTEAD HEPTARCHY HEMEROBAPTISTS HERA HEMICHORDA HERACLEA HEMICYCLE HERACLEON HEMIMERUS HERACLEONAS HEMIMORPHITE HERACLIDAE HEMINGBURGH, WALTER OF HERACLIDES PONTICUS HEMIPTERA HERACLITUS HEMLOCK HERACLIUS HEMP HERALD HEMSTERHUIS, FRANCOIS HERALDRY HEMSTERHUIS, TIBERIUS HERAT HEMY, CHARLES NAPIER HERAULT HEN HERAULT DE SECHELLES, MARIE JEAN HENAULT, CHARLES JEAN FRANCOIS HERB HENBANE HERBARIUM HENCHMAN HERBART, JOHANN FRIEDRICH HENDERSON, ALEXANDER HERBELOT DE MOLAINVILLE, BARTHELEMY D' HENDERSON, EBENEZER HERBERAY DES ESSARTS, NICOLAS DE HENDERSON, GEORGE FRANCIS ROBERT HERBERT (Family) HENDERSON, JOHN HERBERT, GEORGE HENDERSON (Kentucky, U.S.A.) HERBERT, HENRY WILLIAM HENDIADYS HERBERT, SIR THOMAS HENDON HERBERT OF CHERBURY, EDWARD HERBERT HENDRICKS, THOMAS ANDREWS HERBERT OF LEA, SIDNEY HERBERT HENGELO HERBERTON HENGEST and HORSA HERCULANEUM HENGSTENBERG, ERNST WILHELM HERCULANO DE CARVALHO, ALEXANDRE HENKE, HEINRICH PHILIPP KONRAD HERCULES (hero of Hellas) HENLE, FRIEDRICH GUSTAV JAKOB HERCULES (constellation) HENLEY, JOHN HERD HENLEY, WILLIAM ERNEST HERDER, JOHANN GOTTFRIED VON HENLEY-ON-THAMES HEREDIA, JOSE MARIA DE HENNA HEREDIA Y CAMPUZANO, JOSE MARIA HENNEBONT HEREDITAMENT HENNEQUIN, PHILIPPE AUGUSTE HEREDITY HENNER, JEAN JACQUES HEREFORD HENRIETTA MARIA HEREFORDSHIRE HENRY (name origin) HERERO HENRY I. (German king) HERESY HENRY II. (Roman emperor) HEREWARD HENRY III. (Roman emperor) HERFORD HENRY IV. (Roman emperor) HERGENROTHER, JOSEPH VON HENRY V. (Roman emperor) HERINGSDORF HENRY VI. (Roman emperor) HERIOT, GEORGE HENRY VII. (Roman emperor) HERIOT HENRY VII. (German king) HERISAU HENRY RASPE HERITABLE JURISDICTIONS HENRY (emperor of Romania) HERKIMER HENRY I. (king of England) HERKOMER, SIR HUBERT VON HENRY II. (king of England) HERLEN, FRITZ HENRY III. (king of England) HERMAE HENRY IV. (king of England) HERMAGORAS HENRY V. (king of England) HERMANDAD HENRY VI. (king of England) HERMAN DE VALENCIENNES HENRY VII. (king of England) HERMANN I. HENRY VIII. (king of England) HERMANN OF REICHENAU HENRY I. (king of Castile) HERMANN OF WIED HENRY I. (king of France) HERMANN, FRIEDRICH WILHELM VON HENRY II. (king of France) HERMANN, JOHANN GOTTFRIED JAKOB HENRY III. (king of France) HERMANN, KARL FRIEDRICH HENRY IV. (king of France) HERMAPHRODITUS HENRY I. (king of Navarre) HERMAS, SHEPHERD OF HENRY II. (king of Navarre) HERMENEUTICS HENRY I. (king of Portugal) HERMES (Greek god) HENRY II. (duke of Brunswick-W.) HERMES, GEORG HENRY (the Proud, duke of Saxony) HERMES TRISMEGISTUS HENRY (the Lion, duke of Saxony) HERMESIANAX HENRY (Prince of Battenberg) HERMIAS HENRY FITZ HENRY HERMIPPUS HENRY (Cardinal York) HERMIT HENRY OF PORTUGAL HERMOGENES HENRY OF ALMAIN HERMON HENRY OF BLOIS HERMSDORF HENRY OF GHENT HERNE, JAMES A. HENRY OF HUNTINGDON HERNE (town of Germany) HENRY OF LAUSANNE HERNE BAY HENRY, EDWARD LAMSON HERNE THE HUNTER HENRY, JAMES HERNIA HENRY, JOSEPH HERNICI HENRY, MATTHEW HERNOSAND HENRY, PATRICK

HELMONT, JEAN BAPTISTE VAN (1577-1644), Belgian chemist, physiologist and physician, a member of a noble family, was born at Brussels in 1577.[1] He was educated at Louvain, and after ranging restlessly from one science to another and finding satisfaction in none, turned to medicine, in which he took his doctor's degree in 1599. The next few years he spent in travelling through Switzerland, Italy, France and England. Returning to his own country he was at Antwerp at the time of the great plague in 1605, and having contracted a rich marriage settled in 1609 at Vilvorde, near Brussels, where he occupied himself with chemical experiments and medical practice until his death on the 30th of December 1644. Van Helmont presents curious contradictions. On the one hand he was a disciple of Paracelsus (though he scornfully repudiates his errors was well as those of most other contemporary authorities), a mystic with strong leanings to the supernatural, an alchemist who believed that with a small piece of the philosopher's stone he had transmuted 2000 times as much mercury into gold; on the other hand he was touched with the new learning that was producing men like Harvey, Galileo and Bacon, a careful observer of nature, and an exact experimenter who in some cases realized that matter can neither be created nor destroyed. As a chemist he deserves to be regarded as the founder of pneumatic chemistry, even though it made no substantial progress for a century after his time, and he was the first to understand that there are gases distinct in kind from atmospheric air. The very word "gas" he claims as his own invention, and he perceived that his "gas sylvestre" (our carbon dioxide) given off by burning charcoal is the same as that produced by fermenting must and that which sometimes renders the air of caves irrespirable. For him air and water are the two primitive elements of things. Fire he explicitly denies to be an element, and earth is not one because it can be reduced to water. That plants, for instance, are composed of water he sought to show by the ingenious quantitative experiment of planting a willow weighing 5 lb. in 200 lb. of dry soil and allowing it to grow for five years; at the end of that time it had become a tree weighing 169 lb., and since it had received nothing but water and the soil weighed practically the same as at the beginning, he argued that the increased weight of wood, bark and roots had been formed from water alone. It was an old idea that the processes of the living body are fermentative in character, but he applied it more elaborately than any of his predecessors. For him digestion, nutrition and even movement are due to ferments, which convert dead food into living flesh in six stages. But having got so far with the application of chemical principles to physiological problems, he introduces a complicated system of supernatural agencies like the archei of Paracelsus, which preside over and direct the affairs of the body. A central archeus controls a number of subsidiary archei which move through the ferments, and just as diseases are primarily caused by some affection (exorbitatio) of the archeus, so remedies act by bringing it back to the normal. At the same time chemical principles guided him in the choice of medicines--undue acidity of the digestive juices, for example, was to be corrected by alkalies and vice versa; he was thus a forerunner of the iatrochemical school, and did good service to the art of medicine by applying chemical methods to the preparation of drugs. Over and above the archeus he taught that there is the sensitive soul which is the husk or shell of the immortal mind. Before the Fall the archeus obeyed the immortal mind and was directly controlled by it, but at the Fall men received also the sensitive soul and with it lost immortality, for when it perishes the immortal mind can no longer remain in the body. In addition to the archeus, which he described as "aura vitalis seminum, vitae directrix," Van Helmont had other governing agencies resembling the archeus and not always clearly distinguished from it. From these he invented the term blas, defined as the "vis motus tam alterivi quam localis." Of blas there were several kinds, e.g. blas humanum and blas meteoron; the heavens he said "constare gas materia et blas efficiente." He was a faithful Catholic, but incurred the suspicion of the Church by his tract De magnetica vulnerum curatione (1621), which was thought to derogate from some of the miracles. His works were collected and published at Amsterdam as Ortus medicinae, vel opera et opuscula omnia in 1668 by his son Franz Mercurius (b. 1618 at Vilvorde, d. 1699 at Berlin), in whose own writings, e.g. Cabbalah Denudata (1677) and Opuscula philosophica (1690), mystical theosophy and alchemy appear in still wilder confusion.