The _third_ digestion takes place in the vessels of the mesentery, into which the gall-bladder sends the prepared fluid. The _fourth_ digestion is operated in the heart, where the red blood becomes more yellow and more volatile by the addition of the vital spirits. This is owing to the passage of the vital spirit from the posterior to the anterior ventricle, through the pores of the septum. At the same time the pulse is produced, which of itself develops heat; but does not regulate it in any manner, as the ancients pretended that it did. The _fifth_ digestion consists in the conversion of the arterial blood into vital spirit. It takes place principally in the brain, but is produced also throughout all the body. The _sixth_ digestion consists in the elaboration of the nutritive principle in each member, where the archeus prepares its own nourishment by means of the vital spirits. Thus, there are six digestions: the number seven has been chosen by nature for a state of repose. From the preceding sketch of the physiology of Van Helmont, it is evident that he paid little or no regard to the structure of the parts in explaining the functions. In his pathology we find the same passion for spiritualism. He admitted, indeed, the importance of anatomy, but he regretted that the pathological part of that science had been so little cultivated. As the archeus is the foundation of life and of all the functions, it is plain that the diseases can neither be derived from the four cardinal humours, nor from the disposition or the action of opposite things; the proximate cause of diseases must be sought for in the sufferings, the anger, the fear, and the other affections of the archeus, and their remote cause may be considered as the ideal seed of the archeus. Disease, in his opinion, is not a negative state or a mere absence of health, it is a substantial and active thing as well as a state of health. Most of the diseases which attack certain parts or members of the body result from an error in the archeus, who sends his ferment from the stomach in which he resides into the other parts of the body. Van Helmont explained in this way not only the epilepsy and madness, but likewise the _gout_, which does not proceed from a flux, and has not its seat in the limb in which the pain resides, but is always owing to an error in the vital spirit. It is true that the character of the gout acts upon the semen in which the vital spirit principally manifests its action, and that in this way diseases are propagated in the act of generation; but if, during life instead of altering the semen it is carried to the liquid of the articulations, this is a proof of the prudence of nature, which lavishes all her cares on the preservation of the species, and loves better to alter the humours of the articulations than the semen itself. The gout acidifies the liquors of the articulations, which is then coagulated by the acids. The duumvirate is the cause of apoplexy, vertigo, and