Early Life and Education
Van Helmont was the youngest of five children of Maria (van) Stassaert and Christiaen van Helmont, a public prosecutor and Brussels council member, who had married in the Sint-Goedele church in 1567. He was educated at Leuven, and after ranging restlessly from one science to another and finding satisfaction in none, turned to medicine. He interrupted his studies, and for a few years he traveled through Switzerland, Italy, France, and England.
Returning to his own country, van Helmont obtained a medical degree in 1599 . He practiced at Antwerp at the time of the great plague in 1605. In 1609 he finally obtained his doctoral degree in medicine. The same year he married Margaret van Ranst, who was of a wealthy noble family. Van Helmont and Margaret lived in Vilvoorde, near Brussels, and had six or seven children. The inheritance of his wife enabled him to retire early from his medical practice and occupy himself with chemical experiments until his death on the 30th of December 1644.
Read more about this topic: Jan Baptist Van Helmont
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