130 Van Helmont and the Rise [lect. 



He published several books, the first in 1617 ; but his ideas 

 and doctrines are chiefly embodied in his work Ortus Medicince, 

 which however did not see the light until 1648, four years after 

 his death, being edited by his son. 



He was as we shall see a devout Catholic, an obedient son 

 of the Church ; nevertheless a work which he published in 

 1621, Be Magnetica Vulnerum Curatione, in which insisting as 

 Paracelsus had done on the potency of magnetic virtues he 

 seemed to explain away, on physical grounds, some of the 

 miracles, he came into conflict with the spiritual powers ; and 

 for some time during the latter part of his life was condemned 

 to imprisonment, though his own house was allowed to serve as 

 his gaol. 



Van Helmont, as I have already hinted, was from a certain 

 point of view a Paracelsus, a modest, softened Paracelsus come 

 to life again, but come again to a quite different world. 



The medical studies, in which van Helmont first found 

 something solid to rest upon, were not the vague Galenic 

 teachings which were all that had been offered to Paracelsus, 

 but teachings based on the exact anatomical knowledge pro- 

 vided by Vesalius and his school, and on all which that 

 knowledge carried with it. So soon as he had graduated, 

 perhaps even while he was still a student, there came to him 

 as to all others in Northern Europe some of that new, exact 

 physical learning which was starting up in Pisa and in Padua. 

 While he was engaged in his own labours, long before he 

 had completed them, twenty years before his death, Harvey's 

 great work was open before him. He must have heard of 

 it; but it may be doubted whether he ever read it. Certainly 

 he was not convinced by Harvey's arguments, for in his 

 writings, though he combats several of the Galenic doctrines 

 concerning the heart, he still accepts the Galenic view of the 

 passage of the blood from the right side of the heart to 

 the left through the pores of the septum. Still eight years 

 earlier, in 1620, there had appeared the Novum, Organon of 

 Francis Bacon, which, though it probably had no influence 

 on van Helmont and most likely had never been seen by 

 him, was a characteristic product of the time and at least 



