Boerhaave-Herdenkingsrede / D. Schoute.

  • Schoute, D. (Dirk), 1873-1953.
Date:
[1938]
Catalogue details

Licence: In copyright

Credit: Boerhaave-Herdenkingsrede / D. Schoute. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    by irritants acting upon previous debility. It rejects further, an undue reliance upon the powers of nature, and teaches, instantly to wrest the cure of all violent and feeble diseases out of her hands; and lastly it rejects prescriptions for the names of diseases; and by directing their application wholly to their forming and fluctuating states, derives from a few active medicines all the advantages which have been in vain expected from the numeröus articles which compose European treatises upon the materia medica. This system has been adopted by a part of the physicians of Philadelphia, but a respectable number of them are still attached to the system of dr. cullen.” In the beginning of the 19Ü1 century Paris became the cent re of attraction for American physicians and this marks the beginning of a new period in the history of American Medicine i). BOER HA AVE AND THE EARLY MEDÏCAL SCHOOL AT EDINBURGH, BY Dr. J. D. COMRIE, M.A, B.Sc.,M. D., F. R. C. P. E , Edinburgh, The University of Edinburgh has sent me to add a branch of laurel to the wreath which to-day you lay in homage on the tomb of boerhaave, but in Edinburgh he is not forgotten because that school owes him an everlasting debt of gratitude for the influence his personality exercised over its early development. The outstanding facts of his life are well known. Herman Boerhaave was born at Voorhout in 1668, the son of the pastor there. Entering the University of Leiden, he took his degree in philosophy in 1689, and afterwards turned to the study of medicine, thus conforming to the maxim of galen that he is the best physician who is also a philosopher. He graduated in 1693 at Harderwijk, and in 1701 he was appointed lecturer on the institutes of medicine at Leiden. It is worthy of note that in his early days at the uni¬ versity he was specially interested in mathematics, and supported himself by teaching students in this subject, and this special bent had an important influence upon his attitude towards medicine 2). In 1709 he became professor of botany and medicine, rendering good service to the botanie garden of Leiden and to the knowledge of botany in general. In 1714 he assumed in addition the chair of practical medicine, and in this capacity he had the merit of introducing the modern system of clinical instruction which has been adopted by all the schools of medicine in western civilisation. In 1718 his universal genius caused him to be appointed also to the chair of chemistry, and it was not until 1729 that declining 1) I wish to thank Miss genevieve miller for the help she has given me in gathering the material for this paper. 2) Burton, Life of boerhaave, Londqn 1746, p. 13.