Jan Baptista Van Helmont Facts
Jan Baptista Van Helmont Facts
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| Interesting Jan Baptista Van Helmont Facts: |
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| Van Helmont was born in Vilvoorde, Spanish Netherlands (present day Belgium) and was the youngest of five children. |
| He studied philosophy, the classics and law before changing his course of study to medicine. |
| He received a doctorate of Medicine in 1599 from Catholic University of Louvain. |
| He traveled throughout Europe to increase his knowledge of medicine. |
| In 1609 he married into the nobility and retired to one of his estates in Merode. |
| During the remainder of his life he dedicated himself to chemical research and relief of suffering among the poor. |
| In 1621 he published "Of the Magnetic Curing of Wounds" which landed him in ecclesiastical court. |
| He coined the word "gas" from the Greek word for Chaos and was the first to discover that there are gases distinct from ordinary air. |
| He is known for his five year study on the growth of trees. |
| In 1624 he published a paper critical of the curative value of Spa. |
| The brought him into conflict with other physicians and discouraged him from publishing other papers. |
| He studied digestion and opined that there was a chemical reagent which aided digestion within the body. |
| Today scientists recognize the role of enzymes in digestion. |
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