Page:The growth of medicine from the earliest times to about 1800.djvu/442

 CHAPTER XXXI

CHEMISTRY AND EXPERIMENTAL PHARMACOLOGY

The experiments which were carried out by Antonius Musa Brasavola, in the early part of the sixteenth century, upon animals and criminals, for the purpose of learning the effects produced by certain drugs when administered internally, afford one of the earliest instances of a genuine experimental pharmacology. The account of these experiments, which was published at Rome, in 1536, under the title "Examen omnium simplicium, quorum usus est in publicis officinis," deserves honorable mention. An even more remarkable evidence of the research spirit which was abroad at that period is to be found in the work done by Fortunatus Fedelis, a native of Palermo, Sicily, and an ardent champion of the direct method of observation as applied to therapeutics.

Van Helmont, of whose life and contributions to the science of medicine I now propose to furnish a sketch, represents in a certain sense Paracelsus' successor; and, as a matter of fact, he was even more closely associated with the development of chemistry as an independent science than was his predecessor.

Jean Baptiste Van Helmont was born at Brussels in 1577. His parents, who belonged to the nobility, possessed ample financial means and were therefore able to give their son every opportunity to secure a liberal education. While still a lad he enrolled himself among the students of the University of Louvain, and advanced so rapidly in his studies that, already at the early age of seventeen, he had passed all the examinations required of applicants for the degree of Master of Philosophy. He was not willing,