Jan Baptist van Helmont (bapt. 12 January 1579 – 30 December 1644) was an early modern period Flemish chemist, physiologist, and physician. He worked during the years just after Paracelsus and iatrochemistry, and is sometimes considered to be "the founder of pneumatic chemistry". Van Helmont is remembered today largely for his ideas on spontaneous generation, his 5-year tree experiment, and his introduction of the word "gas" (from the Greek word chaos) into the vocabulary of scientists.
Read more about Jan Baptist Van Helmont: Early Life and Education, Career As Chemistry Pioneer, Religious and Philosophical Opinions, Observations About Digestion, Portrait Discovered, For Further Reading
Famous quotes containing the words baptist and/or van:
“You should approach Joyce’s Ulysses as the illiterate Baptist preacher approaches the Old Testament: with faith.”
—William Faulkner (1897–1962)
“It is not a certain conformity of manners that the painting of Van Gogh attacks, but rather the conformity of institutions themselves. And even external nature, with her climates, her tides, and her equinoctial storms, cannot, after van Gogh’s stay upon earth, maintain the same gravitation.”
—Antonin Artaud (1896–1948)