

VAN HELMONT. 373 



student of Gilbert and was well familiar with Gilbert's 

 magnetic experiments, references to which he mingles in 

 his writings with his own falsehoods relative to the cura- 

 tive properties of the magnet, so as to make it appear that 

 his absurdities somehow rest upon Gilbert's researches. 1 

 From Gilbert's theory of the amber effluvium, he evidently 

 concocted the explanation of the effect of the magnetic 

 unguent or powder (which, by the way, was never to be 

 applied to the wound, but to either the weapon which in- 

 flicted it or to an ensanguined bandage), wherein he main- 

 tains that "the blood effused doth send out subtle streams 

 to its fount," namely, the body; and these streams or 

 "Magnetic Nuntii" carry with them "the Balsamick 

 Emanations of the Sympathetick Unguent or Powder." 

 So far as the actual electrical effect was concerned, it did 

 not appear to enter per se into Van Helmont's curative 

 agencies except as a direct means of drawing contagion out 

 of the body, and "venome and bullets out of wounds;" 

 but the passage in his work which prefaces this announce- 

 ment has another and more noteworthy claim to fame. In 

 the English translation of Charleton, it is : 



"The phansy of Amber delights to allect strawes, chaffe 

 and other festucous bodies, by an attraction, we confess, 

 obscure and weake enough, yet sufficiently manifest and 

 strong to attest an Electricity or attractive sign-nature. >>a 



That was the first appearance of the actual word which 

 is now the name of the science. 



As the Rosicrucians increased in numbers, they became 

 bolder in their assertions, insisting that magnetic agents 

 not only transmit their spiritual energy into determinate 

 patients, but do so "at vast and intermediate distances." 

 The common people accused them of witchcraft, and be- 

 lieved them especially inspired t>y the powers of darkness. 

 Helmont retorts with "experiments," and the following 



1 Charleton: A Ternary of Paradoxes of the magnetic cure of wounds, 

 etc. 2d ed. London, 1650. (Trans, of Van Helmont ) 

 2 Charleton: Supra, p. 77 



