For an account of Fludd and the English Rosicrucians see Craven's Life of Fludd, Kirkwall, 1902.
A school of a more rational kind followed directly upon the work of Paracelsus, in which the first man of any importance was Van Helmont.
The Paracelsian Archeus was the presiding spirit in living creatures, and worked through special local ferments, by which the functions of the organs are controlled.

Disease of any part represents a strike on the part of the local Archeus, who refuses to work.

Though full of fanciful ideas, Van Helmont had the experimental spirit and was the first chemist to discover the diversity of gases.

Like his teacher, he was in revolt against the faculty, and he has bitter things to say of physicians.

He got into trouble with the Church about the magnetic cure of wounds, as no fewer than twenty-seven propositions incompatible with the Catholic faith were found in his pamphlet (Ferguson).