HELMONT, Johannes Baptista van.

by Johannes Baptista van Helmont

£1,850 · Offered by Sokol Books

.Second edition, corrected and published after the author s death by his son, of this remarkable collection of four chemical and medical treatises. In this work, first published in 1644, the author presented a new cure for stones and the results of numerous chemical experiments. This second edition was also issued in conjunction with the first edition of Van Helmont s Ortus medicinae , and the two are sometimes found together. . .First in the collection is De lithiasis , a treatise on urinary calculi which has been defined by the important physician Boerhaave as incomparable, and the best . The author discusses reporting the results of a series of experiments how solid concretions are formed in nature. Notably, Helmont also announces for the first time his Ludus , a new remedy for the stone disease and how to prepare it (the author modified a recipe of Paracelsus adding more ingredients); Ludus was described as mineral with the extraordinary ability to dissolve any concretion in the human body. De Febribus (first ed. 1642) is a shorter work on fevers and their nature, interestingly containing an alternative view to Galen and ascribing fever to the influence of the archeus , the vital spirit regulating the internal heat of the body. De humoribus Galeni , third in the collection, contains a scathing review of Galen s humoral theory. Finally, De peste is a treatise on the plague; as this disease was still a major threat in Europe, this is one of Van Helmont s most translated and

• Binding: Hardcover

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