Stanley Redgrove - Johannes Baptista Van Helmont (William Rider & Son, 1922)

Jan Van Helmont was a Flemish alchemist, physicist and philosopher, as the subtitle of this biography explains. He lived in the 17th Century, not far from where I live.

He termed the word 'gas', as he discovered that there were more gaseous substance apart from air. He was a true experimentalist, which was very new at that time. He not only observed things that were happening, but he set up experiments to check and double-check whether his intuitions were right or what would happen if he mixed certain things. The fact that he was also an alchemist and believed in the existence of the Elixir of Life, may have helped him in his endeavours.

He also understood the importance of other agents to help digestion, such as enzymes, even if he did not know about how this actually worked.

Interesting how science and ignorance and superstition look from a distance. In some centuries people will look back at us in the same way, and wonder why we could not see what is so obvious.