operation Archæus, present everywhere, is itself regenerated, and superintends the momentary regeneration of the whole frame. If for digestion we substitute the word nutrition, we cannot fail to be struck by the near approach to accuracy in this description of the succession of processes by which it is brought about.

Van Helmont's pathology was quite consistent with his physiology. As life and all vital action depended upon Archæus, so the perturbation of Archaus gave rise to fevers, and derangements of the blood and secretions. Thus, gout was a disease not confined to the part in which it showed itself, but was the result of Archaus.

It will be seen that by this theory the entire system of Galen was nonsuited. There is no place for the elements and the humours. Indeed, Van Helmont denied the existence of four elements. He threw out fire as an element altogether, and reverted to the notion of Thales, that out of fluidity, with the assistance of Archaus acting by means of a ferment, all matter received its form. He was the first to use the word Gas,' and to distinguish between different kinds of gases.

Given such a theory of disease as he advocated, one would be puzzled to construct for it a corresponding system of therapeutics. It is plain, that if disease did not arise from an excess of either black bile, yellow bile, phlegm, or blood, it would not answer to use the great remedies of his day -purgatives, derivatives, and blood-letting. Rejecting the maxims, he rejected the practice of Galen, and his objections founded on the futility of the system, even now adhered to, are unanswerable The following passages are upon

The etymology of Gas has been much discussed, and it is usual to derive it from Geist. It seems to me to be a word invented, not derived. The reader of Van Helmont will find a number of new words, such

as Blas, Gas, &c. When he uses them for the first time, he describes their meaning, as if they were arbitrary symbols, which I believe them to be.

the treatment of pleurisy :-"You adopt venesection, and endeavour by means of Revulsion to withdraw the blood from the vena azygos, as if it contained the disease." "Again, they call the process derivation-draining off,when they open a vein, which is supposed to feed or conduct to the affected part. Alas! how fertile are the schools in words and technicalities which, viewed by the light of nature, are simply ridiculous! For, granted that the vein at the elbow should part with every drop of its blood, and the vena azygos be thereby emptied—yet the schools ought to know that there would immediately ensue an equal redistribution of blood throughout the veins; so that, although the vein which was opened were entirely emptied, which is impossible, there straightway would occur an equalization of the blood through the whole web of the veins. Whence it is quite clear that the talk about revulsion and derivation is mere drivel; for even if you concede their assumed effects, all that they really produce will be a trifling delay."

No

A few lines further on he exclaims :-"Wholly irrational is the technical treatment-the usual routine. doubt you can lessen, nay, even arrest the flow of a rushing stream in a specific direction, if you make a lateral opening in one of its banks, and thus effect a nearer and steeper descent towards the lower levels. But what earthly good do you gain by getting rid of so many ounces of blood, and at the same time causing a vast loss of vital power? For is it not the fact, that the moment you close the vein which you have opened, the blood will flow again to its appointed place-must flow, so long as the cause of its movement exists? Were it not better to attack the fountain-head, seeing that venesection in pleurisy will not suffer us to cherish any hope, except that which springs from exhausted powers?

"Nature, it is true, missing sadly her wonted strength, and bankrupt in blood, will not manifest the abnormal

ong as her weakness remains; ani, Eke a died of the recent stormy swelling, may begin

the propriety of concocting pus, as soon as ut of extravasated blood. But the desired is would follow more naturally and more propitiously, va amed the blood in which the life-that is, the Yok newer—resides. For Nature, the only healer of is emphatically life, and when that goes, the phyvoda can only shrug his shoulders.”1

4.43

These me strong expressions to come from a master in ངས་ They read like the fierce denunciations of some aw, such as Paracelsus. "With pleasure," says Sprengel, o the lover of truth hang over the writings of the man we, however much he adhered to the mysticism of his you exposed innumerable theoretical and practical and expounded principles which later physicians candy regarded as the fruits of after discoveries.

ncorruptible tribunal of History will the chaplet of awarded to this forgotten physician of the olden He has had, like other bold innovators, to wait wo hundred years for this justice. By his con, Guy Patin, he was represented as having died ad, from his aversion to blood-letting. Van webtour a son, however, Francis Mercius, who attended Na het on his death-bed, says, that this report of his victim to his horror of bloodshed, is entirely false

ved of the dangerous weapons then in use for Cing disse and human life, Van Helmont had e naturally to the new medicines, mercury and soy, and also used wine and opium largely, with dieceza we are not informed; and, indeed, his thera

While Van Helmont was the exponent of the speculation of his age, in the direction both of vitality and chemistry. William Harvey served himself heir to the land of promise pointed out by Lord Bacon, in the kingdom of simple obser vation and direct experiment. His life presents a giv contrast to that of his contemporary, Van Holmont wa a brilliant meteor, a gasiform body shooting across the planet's orbit-dazzling, but soon lost to view; Harvey, a planet moving in steady radiance, " without haste and with out rest," and contributing for ever and for over his proper tones to the everlasting music of the spheres.

1 From a picture by Rennel, in the collection of Dr. Moad,

love for the subject of his investigation, the great, open secret of the circulation would not have been revealed to him. Truth demands the devotion of a whole life for such a revelation in return. The politician and man of science have nothing in common: to be great in either spheres of action, a man must disown the other. Harvey, and men of his stamp, are not in their nature indifferent to ordinary human affairs; they are simply always pre-occupied; they are so intent on the point towards which they are pressing, as to be unconscious of the scenery. The book Harvey was reading on the battle-field of Edgehill, was very likely his favourite, "Fabricius' Treatise upon Generation." For a few days after the battle, he accompanied the king and army to Oxford, and during his very brief stay there, Aubrey says, "I remember he came several times to our College (Trinity), to George Bathurst, B.D., who had a hen to hatch eggs in his chamber, which they opened daily, to see the progress and way of generation." This, doubtless, was the subject of his study and meditation, when, before his eyes, a king was fighting for his kingdom, and the king's sons were looking on.

1

Four years afterwards, in 1646, at the ripe age of sixtyeight, he quitted the service of the king --for which, indeed, now that the king could no longer supply him with does out of Windsor Forest, he could have had little taste. He was, doubtless, thankful to have done with a soldier's life, for which he was eminently unfit, both in character and appearance; for he was of the lowest stature; olivaster complexion; round-faced little eye, round, very black, full of spirit; his hair black as a raven, but quite white twenty years before he died." 2

In the year 1651, when seventy-three years of age, he pub

1 Aubrey. Op. cit.

2 Aubrey. Op. cit. The notice of Harvey by Aubrey is short, and con

tains little matter of interest beyond the few facts which have passed into general biography.