~~Jan+Baptist+van+Helmont~~

[] Name: Jan Baptist van Helmont Date of birth and death: 1574-1644 Country of origin: Belgium Van Helmont was a Flemish chemist, physiologist, and physician. He is sometimes considered to be "the founder of pneumatic chemistry". Van Helmont was the youngest of five children and, after being educated at Leuven, turned to medicine. Van Helmont obtained a medical degree in 1599 and practiced at Antwerp at the time of the great plague in 1605. In 1609, he finally obtained his doctoral degree in medicine. The same year he married the wealthy, noble Margaret van Ranst. Jan and Margaret had six or seven children and he inheritance of his wife enabled him to retire early from his medical practice and occupy himself with chemical experiments until his death on the 30th of December 1644.

Van Helmont made his mark from his ideas on spontaneous generation, his 5-year tree experiment, and his introduction of the word "gas" into the vocabulary of scientists. He was the first to understand that there are gases distinct in kind from atmospheric air. He believed air and water were the two primitive elements and denied that fire was an element. []