140 Van Helmont mid the Rise [lect. 



vivification of the blood, the conversion of crude into vitalized 

 blood by the addition and influence of the spiritus vitalis, always 

 present in the left ventricle, always subject to multiplication 

 and increase. 



Two points may be noticed here. One is that van Helmont 

 came very near to and yet wholly missed the use of air in 

 breathing. The other is his singular clinging to the passage 

 through the septum. 



We have seen how, in spite of the direct evidence of their 

 senses, men clung for centuries to the view that the blood 

 passed through the solid septum of the heart, from the right to 

 the left ventricle. In spite of Servetus' stout assertion that 

 such a passage was impossible, in spite of Vesalius' biting 

 sarcasms, in spite of Columbus and Csesalpinus the view 

 still held its ground ; it gave way before Harvey, not because 

 Harvey like those before him denied it but because he 

 shewed a better way. Van Helmont, Harvey's contemporary, 

 born the year before him and dying twenty-three years 

 before him, had not, as we have seen, profited by what 

 Harvey had done ; he still believed that the blood passed 

 through the septum from the right to the left ventricle. He 

 added to the old view, a new one, that the fermentative spirit 

 which vitalized the blood passed also through the septum, but 

 in the contrary direction, namely from left to right. And he 

 argued that the pits in the septum, being conical in shape with 

 their narrow apices abutting on the left ventricle, and their 

 broad bases on the right ventricle, were so constructed in order 

 that they might prevent the return of the blood itself from the 

 left side to the right though they allowed the passage of the 

 more subtle spirit. The story forms an odd page in the 

 history of human thought, a page odd but full of warning. 

 When we examine our own views to-day about this matter and 

 that, are we sure that we are not asserting that things are 

 passing through a septum though our senses shew us that there 

 are in it no channels through which such a passage can take place ? 



And now comes a remarkable generalisation, by which 

 van Helmont leaps ahead, and anticipates conclusions which 

 were not reached until many a long year after him. 



