Jean-baptiste van helmont biography
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Scientist of the Day - Joan Baptista van Helmont
Joan Baptista van Helmont, a Flemish physician, was born Jan. 12, Van Helmont (alternatively referred to as Jan Baptist van Helmont) was a strong proponent for what was called, in his day, iatrochemistry, or medical chemistry. Medicine since the time of Galen in ancient Greece had relied almost exclusively on plant preparations as remedies for illness, until Paracelsus in the 16th century had rebelled against what he called the Galenic tyranny and argued that disease has a kemikalie origin. Van Helmont agreed, and thus van Helmont was, in this sense anyway, a Paracelsian. Van Helmont is notable in the history of chemistry for being the first to identify “airs” that are different from the air we breathe. He pointed out the peculiar properties of the "air" given off during wine-making, and combustion, calling it "gas sylvestre", and he recognized another "air" that accumulates in swamps and the intestines,
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Jan Baptist van Helmont
Chemist and physician (–)
Jan Baptist van Helmont[b] (HEL-mont,[2]Dutch:[ˈjɑmbɑpˈtɪstfɑnˈɦɛlmɔnt]; 12 January [a]&#;– 30 månad ) was a chemist, physiologist, and physician from Brussels. He worked during the years just after Paracelsus and the rise of iatrochemistry, and is sometimes considered to be "the founder of pneumatic chemistry".[3] Van Helmont is remembered today largely for his 5-year willow tree experiment, his introduction of the word "gas" (from the Greek word chaos) into the vocabulary of science, and his ideas on spontaneous generation.
Early life and education
[edit]Jan Baptist van Helmont was the youngest of five children of Maria (van) Stassaert and Christiaen van Helmont, a public prosecutor and Brussels council member, who had married in the Sint-Goedele church in [4] He was educated at Leuven, and after ranging restlessly from one science to another and finding sa
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Primary Contributors: Cultures of Knowledge
Jan Baptist Van Helmont (–)
Jan Baptist Van Helmont was born on 12 January in Brussels, into a Catholic family called Berthout of Mechelen [Malines] that came from old Flemish landed gentry. In , his father died, leaving his mother to raise their young family. Jan Baptist enrolled very early at the University of Louvain [Leuven], where he graduated at the age of seventeen. Despite self-professed doubts about the quality of the education he was receiving, he began at medical school and graduated as MD in
After a period of travel in Europe, Van Helmont returned to his homeland, living at his estate in Vilvoorde between and c. , when he moved to a townhouse in Brussels. Soon after his arrival in the city, he became embroiled in the fractious weapon-salve controversy, which from had set the Paracelsians against the Jesuits. The weapon salve was a Paracelsian medicine that supposedly cured at a distance, removing the need for