Note 1 — CHAPTER 1. A RETROSPECT

Van Helmont was first to prove the indestructibility of matter in chemical changes by utilizing the balance in analysis, invented the word “gas”, and first used the melting-point of ice and the boiling-point of water as limits of a thermometric scale. He opposed the view of Descartes that the pineal gland is the seat of the soul, his physiological investigations leading him to the conviction that the temple of that entity is the stomach!