Mechanistic Biology 229 



of herbal medicines and by introducing chemical or " spagirical " 

 medicines as they were called, such as preparations of zinc 

 and antimony. To his more rational therapy Erasmus owed a 

 recovery from several dangerous sicknesses. 



Thus by one of the most extraordinary ironies of history, the 

 first biochemist was also the first vitalist. For in spite of the gulf 

 between the methods of Paracelsus and those of the present day, 

 there is borne in upon the student of his writings the conviction 

 that had he lived four hundred years later, he would have been 

 eminent in biochemical research. The orientation of mind is the 

 same though the methods are different. And yet, in spite of this, 

 vitalism also has its birthplace with him. It was not until there 

 was any idea of what is meant by experimental science that it was 

 possible to discuss the question as to whether life could be explained 

 solely by its aid, except as a point of speculation. McDougall has 

 pointed out that the ghost-soul of primitive peoples, that half- 

 material, half-spiritual counterpart of man, which arose, as some 

 say, through dreams and images of waking life, or as others would 

 have it, through the remembrances of dead friends, became in the 

 course of history split into two portions. One of these became the 

 basis of the intellect and so the subject of metaphysical discussion, 

 the other became the vital force which it was supposed was 

 needed to assist in the explanation of the activities of the body, and 

 so the bone of contention among physiological thinkers. One of 

 the main points of divergence, of dichotomy of the primitive con- 

 ception, then, is Paracelsus. Quite apart from the anima, there 

 was to him a vital force which governed the movements of atoms 

 in such a way as to create living beings, so that although the first 

 of biochemists he was no mechanist. 



" The business of alchemy," he said, " is not to prepare either 

 gold or silver but to make medicines." This changed outlook 

 took root and the new study of iatro-chemistry flourished for the 

 next two centuries as the real precursor of chemistry. The next 

 important figure in this part of biological history is Jean-Baptiste 

 van Helmont. Like his predecessor Paracelsus, he made several 

 very great advances in what we should now call pure chemistry, 

 such as introducing the conception of enzyme action and the defini- 

 tion of a gas, but he was just as much a vitalist as Paracelsus and 

 adopted his theory of archaei almost entirely. His only difference 

 was that he pictured the archaei as- definitely struggling against 



