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Helmont, Glisson, and the Doctrine of the Common Reservoir in the Seventeenth-Century Revolution in Physiology

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  05 January 2009

Jeffrey Boss
Jeffrey Boss
Affiliation:
Department of Physiology, The Medical School, University Walk, Bristol. BS8 1TD.
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Extract

The change in the physiological conception of body fluid during the Seventeenth Century exemplifies the beginning of changes in chemical ideas away from humours as irreducible components of fluid systems towards water as the common solvent of an indefinitely large range of solutions. Against the Galenic humoral view of body fluids J.-B. van Helmont (1579–1644) postulated ‘latex’, a humour distributed through the body and common to several body fluids. The theory of latex explained experimental findings and provided a basis for Helmont's introduction of diuretics into the treatment of dropsy. Francis Glisson (1597–1677) adopted the theory of latex. In this paper it is shown that Helmont contradicted, in part at least, the distinctness of humours by a doctrine of a common reservoir from which various body fluids are drawn. It is further argued that, on the available evidence, Helmont is the originator of this idea of a common reservoir. Through hitherto unremarked and unpublished manuscript evidence, it is shown that Glisson, in adopting the theory of latex, and its therapeutic application, modifies and extends it. In the manuscripts Glisson expresses himself in the language of Helmontian philosophy. Given Glisson's known influence (in, for example, spreading Harvey's doctrine of the circulation), the question arises what part, if any, is attributable to him in the transmission of the doctrine of the common reservoir. From the point of view of experimental science, that doctrine makes a break with the past no less radical than does, say, that of the circulation. It appears that we have here yet another major contribution of Helmont to the scientific revolution with, through Glisson, a possible channel of transmission of this contribution.

Type
Research Article
Information
The British Journal for the History of Science , Volume 16 , Issue 3 , November 1983 , pp. 261 - 272
Copyright
Copyright © British Society for the History of Science 1983

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References

Modified from a paper read to the British Society for the History of Science, London, 1 Oth January, 1981. In the preparation of this paper, Dr. Walter Pagel, Dr. Charles Webster, Professor Rupert Hall, and Dr. Vivian Mutton have given advice painstakingly, and the author gladly thanks them. This work is part of a study of Francis Glisson generously supported by the Wellcome Trust.

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28 J.-B. van Helmont's son, Franciscus Mercurius van Helmont, published a translation of the Sepher Tetsirah, the oldest known Cabbalistic work. Helmont the elder was a younger contemporary of Hayim Vital Calabrese whose works were the principal written source for the Cabbalism of lsaac Luria. Thus, also among the Jews themselves, this was a period of intense interest in Cabbala.

29 Pagel, W., ‘Harvey and Glisson on irritability, with a note on van Helmont,’ Bull. Hist. Med., 1967 41. 497–514.Google ScholarPubMed

30 Brit. Lib. MS Sloane 3306.

31 Glisson, F., Tractatus de ventriculo el intestints, London (Brome), 1677Google Scholar; Pars posterior, cap. XIV, pp. 217–243Google Scholar. Note especially sections 33 35, pp. 234–238.

32 Ibid., sect. 34, begins: ‘Nè quis putet me hic venari occasionem Cl. Helmontium sugillandi, dicam me neque hic, neque alibi, (nullius licèt in verba juratum,) ejus judicium parvi facere. Eum lubenter lego, & ex ejus lectione me profecisse fateor. Quin & agnosco eum fuisse virum magnum magnae industriae, acerrimi ingenii, sedulum veritatis indagatorem. Utinam verò ab eo indecoro, in omnes propè alios ante se, pruritu invehendi abstinuisset’.

33 The Glisson papers are not in chronological order. However, there is a tendency for papers of approximately similar date to be near one another. Other papers in the volume containing those indicated here can be dated because they bear candidate's names. These seven other papers lie in the range 1654–1661. Few of the Glisson papers are explicity dated. Rather more can be dated by inference. At present, however, most are still without assigned dates.

34 Brit. Lib. MS Sloane 3308. ‘In omne febre datur sanguinis fermentatio’ (ff. 167–168)Google Scholar. ‘Medicamenta diuretica maxime prosunt hydropicis’ (f. 168).Google Scholar

35 ‘Quod ad alteram quaestionem attinet, duobus modo praemissum cautionibus assentior domino respondenti. Prior est, ut antequam deveniendum sit ad diuretica praemittantur evacuantia universalia; nempe tam per vomitum si modo aeger commode ferat quam pro secessum. Posterior est ut, quantum fieri potest, persiciamus reductioni aquarum extra venatarum. Alioquin enim hydropici potius nimia seri penuria in vasis quam nimia copia laborant’ etc. (‘Aquae extra venatae’ is a phrase recurring in Helmont).

36 Brit. Lib. MS Sloane 3309. ‘Sanguis est fons catarrhum’. (Jottings on f. 357; continuous prose on ff. 359–365)Google Scholar. Using an argument like that of ref. 33, the assignable dates of papers bound into the same volume lie in the range 1656–1662. The title is a statement of the view taken by Helmont.

37 Ibid., f. 360a, 2nd para., 5th line, to 361a, third line. Primo, ut inveniamus praecisam partem sanguinis, ex qua fit catarrhus, opus est, duplicem sanguinis analysin instituamus. Priorem in elementa intermedia, posteriorem in elementa ultima. Si priori modo sanguinem resolvamus in tres partes dirimitur, in grumum atrum, grumum album seu fibrosum et serum. Hoc vero in 5 partes subdividitur in laticem in materiam potulentam in albugineam, salinam et terrestem. Ad laticem refero eum liquorem qui per glandulas ad humectandas partes secernitur: ut humor salivalis. Ad materiam albugineam, eam partem seri quae dum coquitur ad ignem instar albuminis ovi coagulatur; ad salsam et terrestem partem reliquias absumpti sanguinis, quae quasi cineres lignorum igne combustorum, in salem et terram seu caput mortuum resolvuntur. Calor enim vitalis quasi ignis secretus sensim materiam quam despascitur incinerat; hoc est in salem et terram damnatam excoquit. Jam vero delectum ex omnibus nominatis partibus in rem praesentem faciamus et puto in principio catarrhi ad ejus generationem, assumi partem seri albugineam, cui tamen aliquid admiscetur laticis nec non partis salsae; tamen vero temporis (catarrho ad coctionem tendente) adiungi magnam partem grumi fibrosi seu glutinosi: tune temporis vero salsedinem alio diverti; et intra suos limites coerceri; imo cum urina deinceps regulariter evacuari'.

38 Pagel, W., The reaction to Aristotle in seventeenth-century biological thought, in Underwood, E.A., ed., Science, Medicine, and History: essays… in honour of Charles Singer, Oxford U.P., 1953; vol. 1, pp. 489–509Google Scholar. The quoted passage is on pp. 507–508.

39 Boss, Jeffrey, ‘The methodus medendi as an index of change in the philosophy of medical science in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries’, Hist. & Philos. Life Sci., 1979. 1, 13–42.Google ScholarPubMed

40 Whitteridge, Gweneth, William Harvey and the circulation of the blood, London (Macdonald), 1971Google Scholar; chap. 8, pp. 175–200.

41 Pagel, W., William Harvey's biological ideas, Basel (Karger), 1967; pp. 268–270Google Scholar, where several relevant references to Paracelsus's writings are to be found.

42 Pagel, W., Paracelsus: an introduction to philosophical medicine in the era of the Renaissance, Basel (Karger), 1958; p. 201Google Scholar. Pagel cites Von der Wassersucht from Paracelsus's Elf Traktat, vol. I, p. 16 of Sudhoff's edition.Google Scholar

43 Sydenham, Thomas, Tractalus de Podagra et Hydrope [2nd edition, 1685]. Tractatus II. De hydrope, sect. 26, in Opera omnia, London (Sydenham Society), 1844; p. 466.Google Scholar

44 Pagel, W., ref. 42, p. 329Google Scholar. The references here are to Erastus, opposing Paracelsus.

43 No title. Incipit: ‘Here begynneth the seynge of Urynes of all the couloures that Urynes be of with the medycines annexed to every Urine & every Uryne his Urynal muche profitable for every man to knowe. London (ptd. by Elysabeth, widow of Robert Redman).’ Paracelsus, in 1527, knew of a urinary constituent precipitable by whey, vinegar, or wine (Pagel, , ref. 42, p. 161).Google Scholar

46 Brit. Lib. MS Sloane 3309/341–343, dated 26.6.1662, critically edited by Boss, J.M.N., ‘Doctrina de circulatione sanguinis haud immutat antiquam medendi methodum: an unpublished manuscript by Francis Glisson (1597–1677) on implications of Harvey's physiology’, Physis, 1978, 20, 309–336Google Scholar. Glisson did not hold the opinion of Restaurand (ref. 41, p. 120) that the circulation was already known to the ancients, nor did he use the term methodus medendi only in its narrower, purely therapeutic sense.

47 Webster, C., The Great Instauration: science, medicine and reform 1626–1660, London (Duckworth), 1975; p. 316Google Scholar. Note also Webster's note (p. 139) on Helmontian influence on Cambridge thesis titles in 1654.

48 Harvey, W., Exercitaliones de Generatione Animalium, Londini (Pulleyn), 1651; cap. 52 (printed ‘51’), pp. 159–162Google Scholar. (Disputations Touching the generation of animals by Harvey, William, transl. and intro by Whitteridge, G., Oxford (Blackwell), 1981; pp. 254–256.)Google Scholar