Jan Baptist van Helmont
Chemist, physiologist, and physician from the Spanish Low Countries · Scientists · Lived 1577 to 1644 · aged 67
Jan Baptist van Helmont is read about 150 times a day, in 44 languages.
A typical day, 30 days to 17 September 2026
The middle day of the days counted, so one week of news cannot move it. The line under it is the last 60 days, one point a day.
Something wrong?He planted a willow, watered it for five years, weighed everything, and helped invent modern chemistry - then coined the word "gas" because he thought air was chaos.
Also in Deutsch
Photos 8
Jan Baptiste van Helmont_(19963018123).jpg?width=1200)
A catalogue of portraits, paintings and sculpture at the Natural History Museum, London (1995) (19963018123)_(14595320340).jpg?width=1200)
Alchemy, ancient and modern (1922) (14595320340)
Engraved front, J.B. van Helmont, Aufgang...1683 Wellcome L0003193
Heads of J.B. and J.M. van Helmont, 17thC Wellcome L0015078
J.B. van Helmont, 1579-1644 Wellcome L0004135
Jan Baptist van Helmont and his son
Jan Baptist van Helmont portraitIn their orbit
Child: Franciscus Mercurius van HelmontAbout this person
Jan Baptist van Helmont was a chemist, physiologist, and physician from Brussels who worked in the decades following Paracelsus and the rise of iatrochemistry. Born on 12 January 1580, he conducted his famous willow tree experiment over five years, meticulously tracking growth and weight in an early attempt at quantitative biology. He introduced the word "gas" into scientific vocabulary, deriving it from the Greek "chaos". Sometimes called the founder of pneumatic chemistry, he also developed ideas on spontaneous generation that would shape debates for centuries. He died in Brussels on 30 December 1644.
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