From van Helmont to Boyle. A study of the transmission of Helmontian chemical and medical theories in seventeenth-century England

Clericuzio, Antonio

doi:10.1017/s0007087400031071

Cited by 58 publications

(7 citation statements)

References 19 publications

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“…Yet, as scholars have rightly pointed out, Van Helmont initially absorbed Paracelsian doctrine through the primary medium of Petrus Severinus. 121 The Severinian influence, strongest in the 1607 manuscript Eisagoge, is also felt in the mature treatise De Spadanis fontibus. 122 Mature Van Helmont adopted the Severinian interpretation of Hippocrates' to enormon (impetus faciens) as being the same as the spiritus of the Ficinian-Fernelian tradition.…”

Section: The Relationship Between 'Exterior Homo' and Van Helmontmentioning

confidence: 99%

Paracelsian Medicine and Theory of Generation in ‘Exterior homo’, a Manuscript Probably Authored by Jan Baptist Van Helmont (1579–1644)

Hedesan

2014

Med. Hist.

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Section: The Relationship Between 'Exterior Homo' and Van Helmontmentioning

confidence: 99%

Paracelsian Medicine and Theory of Generation in ‘Exterior homo’, a Manuscript Probably Authored by Jan Baptist Van Helmont (1579–1644)

Hedesan

2014

Med. Hist.

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“…He refrained from sharing the English Helmontians’ attacks on official medicine and maintained that chemistry can help understand physiology and pathology, but cannot explain the whole animal economy (ibid. ; Clericuzio 1993, 319–326). Boyle did not share the Paracelsians’ claim that all natural phenomena might be explained by chemical notions only.…”

Section: The Mechanical Philosophers Robert Boyle and The Status Of mentioning

confidence: 99%

“Sooty Empiricks” and Natural Philosophers: The Status of Chemistry in the Seventeenth Century

Clericuzio

2010

Sci Context

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ArgumentThis article argues that during the seventeenth century chemistry achieved intellectual and institutional recognition, starting its transition from a practical art – subordinated to medicine – into an independent discipline. This process was by no means a smooth one, as it took place amidst polemics and conflicts lasting more than a century. It began when Andreas Libavius endeavored to turn chemistry into a teaching discipline, imposing method and order. Chemistry underwent harsh criticism from Descartes and the Cartesians, who reduced natural phenomena to the mechanical affections of matter, leaving little room for chemistry as an independent discipline. Boyle rejected the chemical principles and promoted the fusion of chemistry with corpuscularianism. He did not reduce chemical phenomena to the mechanical affections of matter, but strived to promote chemistry as part of natural philosophy. Lemery gave strong impulse to the recognition of chemistry as a discipline in its own right by fostering a compromise of chemistry and mechanism. Lemery adopted the chemical principles, but did not see them as the ultimate ingredients of bodies. In order to promote chemistry, he distanced it from alchemy and pursued the reform of chemical terminology.

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“…By its endeavor to elucidate the visible signs of God's works, natural philosophy "promotes man's piety" (Boyle 1772, ii, 29). In addition, the "new" chemical and medical treatises that were composed by Paracelsus and his disciples during the sixteenth century, as well as the works of seventeenthcentury chemists such as Jean Baptiste van Helmont, Daniel Sennert, and George Starkey, commonly associated their critique of the excessive rationalism of peripatetic natural philosophy with the religious duty to directly examine the natural manifestations of God's power (Debus 1974;Clericuzio 1993;Principe 1995;Newman 1996). Boyle in addition found in the writings of mechanical philosophers a conclusive refutation of Aristotle's philosophical legacy.…”

Section: Boyle's Theology Of God's Secular Dominionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Empowering Lay Belief: Robert Boyle and the Moral Economy of Experiment

Ben-Chaim¹

2002

SIC

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ArgumentHow did Boyle’s religious concerns and views cause his experimental philosophy to differ from received views on the goals and methods of natural philosophy? I argue that Boyle predicated his experimental philosophy on two fundamental doctrines. The first claimed that attributing causality to natural entities was idolatrous, that is, intellectually and morally erroneous. The second doctrine claimed that causal relations in the natural world were the property of God’s benevolent government. Boyle’s experimental studies were accordingly intended to identify specific manifestations of this property, while philosophers traditionally construed experiment as an aid to observation of phenomena. Boyle rendered experiment a learning tool that enabled believers to accommodate themselves, theoretically and practically, to God’s benevolent rule. As a servant of the public good, this experimental philosopher formed an important turning point in the emergence of modern science and its role in the social division of labor.

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From van Helmont to Boyle. A study of the transmission of Helmontian chemical and medical theories in seventeenth-century England

Cited by 58 publications

References 19 publications

Paracelsian Medicine and Theory of Generation in ‘Exterior homo’, a Manuscript Probably Authored by Jan Baptist Van Helmont (1579–1644)

Paracelsian Medicine and Theory of Generation in ‘Exterior homo’, a Manuscript Probably Authored by Jan Baptist Van Helmont (1579–1644)

“Sooty Empiricks” and Natural Philosophers: The Status of Chemistry in the Seventeenth Century

Empowering Lay Belief: Robert Boyle and the Moral Economy of Experiment

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