JEAN BAPTISTE VAN HELMONT (1577-1644), Belgian chemist, physiologist and physician, a member of a noble family, was born at Brussels in 1577.1 He was educated at Louvain, and after ranging restlessly from one science to another and finding satisfaction in none, turned to medicine, in which he took his doctor's degree in 1599. The next few years he spent in travelling through Switzerland, Italy, France and England. Returning to his own country he was at Antwerp at the time of 1 An alternative date for his birth is 1579 and for his death 1635 (see Bull. Roy. Acad. Belg., 1907, 7, p. 732).