John Baptist Van, a famous Brabancian physician, and leader of distinction in the chemical school of medicine, was born at Brussels in the year 1577, and descended of a noble family. At Louvain and other places he studied medicine with so much avidity, that he had perused Hippocrates, Galen, and the Greek and Arabian physicians at a very early period of life. When not more than seventeen years of age, he read public lectures at Louvain, and was created doctor of physic in the year 1599, when only twenty-two. Having, in 1609, married a wife who was both rich and noble, he retired with her to Vilvorde, where he practised as a physician, without taking any fees. He was accustomed to boast of the thousands whom he cured every year; but his success in his own family was by no means great, for his eldest daughter died of a leprosy, and he lost two sons by the plague. He published a variety of works, by which he acquired great reputation. He was invited to the court of Vienna by the Emperor Rodolph, but he declined accepting the invitation. He died in the year 1644, in the sixty-eighth year of his age. Van Helmont was a man of acute genius, clear-sighted in detecting the mistakes of others, and extremely fond of forming hypotheses of his own, which were not always supported by conclusive arguments. He affirmed with great boldness, evinced extreme credulity, and showed excessive fondness for narrations, however extravagant, which seemed to favour his own preconceived opinions. Perhaps his greatest foible was the liberal manner in which he praised himself, in reference to his own pretended nostrums and specifics. His ideas were far from being perspicuous, chiefly owing to his habit of employing terms and phrases which he had not properly defined. He added much, however, to the stock of chemical facts at that time known, and paved the way to more interesting discoveries; and he contributed more than any of his predecessors to subvert the Galenical theory of humours and qualities, which he certainly combated with many forcible arguments. His theory of ferments was in a great measure espoused by Sylvius. His son Francis Mercury published a collected edition of his works, Amsterdam, 1648, in 4to, which has often been reprinted since, under the title of Opera Omnia, and has been

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1 A common belief prevails in this country among the young and ignorant, that Gordii or hair-eels derive their origin from horse-hairs, or at least, that if a hair plucked from the tail of a horse (or probably a mare) is placed in water, it will soon assume the form and fulfill the functions of a Gordius—in other words, will become animated. We once heard this subject very gravely discussed in a company of poets and philosophers. The writer of the preceding sketch maintained, perhaps more seriously than so absurd a subject deserved, that such a transformation could not be. His arguments, which proceeded on certain general principles not necessary to be here narrated, were met by an equally serious assertion on the part of an ingenious and well-known pastoral poet, an honoured native of the vale of Ettrick, in the south of Scotland, that he had not only seen the conversion of a horse-hair to a hair-eel, but that having on one occasion, while engaged in angling, dropped a fishing-line from his hat-band, he had the good fortune to recover it some weeks after in the form of a congeries, all twisted and entwined together, of hair-eels!!! What became of the hooks?

Blessed be the day I 'scaped the Stygian crew, From Pyrro's maze, and Epicurus' sty, And field high converse with the godlike few, Who to the enraptured heart, and ear, and eye, Teach virtue, beauty, love, and truth, and melody. Helmsley translated into Dutch, French, and English. Of all his productions, the most curious are, 1. Febrium Doctrina inaudita, Antwerp, 1614, in 8vo; and, 2. De Magnetea Vulnerum naturali et legitima Curatione, contra Joh. Roberti, Soc. Jesu, Paris, 1621, in 8vo.