JAN BAPTIST VAN HELMONT (1580 - 1644)
Ortus medicinae. Id est, Initia phisicae inaudita. Progressus medicinae novus, in morborum ultionem, ad vitam longam. Authore Ioanne Baptista van Helmont, Toparcha in Merode, Royenborch, Oorschot, Pellines, & c. Edente authoris filio, Francisco Mercurio van Helmont, cum eius praefatione ex belgico translata. [bound with:] Joannis Baptistae van Helmont, Toparchae in Royenborch, Pellines, & c. Opuscula medica inaudita. I. De lithiasi. II. De febribus. III. De humoribus Galeni. IV. De peste. Amsterodami, apud Ludovicum Elzevirium, 1648

§ 4° (200 x 152 ), [36], 800 [i.e. 808]; [8], 110, [2, blank], 115, [1], 88 pp.; sign.: *-****4, *****2, A-IIIII4; A-P4; A-O4, P2; A-L4. Original full vellum binding (slightly soiled) with manuscript title on the spine; author and author’s son portrait on leaf *4v , truly fresh and wide margined copy.
Provenance: The personal collection of the German pathologist and medical historian Walter Pagel (1898 - 1983), with ink inscription (Walter Pagel MCMXLVIII) inside the front cover and ex-libris of his son, the British astrophysicist Bernard Pagel (1930 - 2007) on the lower left corner (Ex libris B[ernard]. E[phraim]. J[ulius]. Pagel)

First collected edition of the works of the Flemish alchemist, physician and physiologist Jan B
aptist van Helmont, edited posthumously by his son Franciscus Mercurius (1614 - 1698/1699).
Scientific genius but man of his time as well, van Helmont was, on the one hand, a disciple of Paracelsus (though he scornfully repudiated his errors as well as those of most other contemporary authorities), a mystic and alchemist. On the other hand, he was touched with the new learning based on experiment that was producing men like William Harvey, Galileo Galilei and Francis Bacon. Van Helmont is furthermore regarded as the founder of pneumatic chemistry, as he was the first to understand that there are gases distinct in kind from atmospheric air. The very word gas he claimed as his own invention