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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    years old, but physicians had not in general realised the essential importance of its application to physiology and disease. It was generally admitted that some of the blood circulated, but many physicians maintained that a cruder part of the blood was distri- buted to the organs and remained there. Pitcairne occupied himself particularly in, demonstrating the completeness and importance of the circulation, and in proving by mathematical calculations the nature and flexibility of the minute passages through which the blood must pass in the tissues. It is true that leeuwenhoek of Delft had already on September 7th 1688 addressed to the Royal Society of London a letter in which he described the passing of the blood from the arteries into the veins through blood vessels so narrow that only one corpuscle could be driven through them at one time 1). Leeuwenhoek Was an isolated observer not connected with any medical school, but possessed an extraordinary genius for constructing simple mi¬ croscopes and an almost greater genius for seeing minute objects through them. Although extracts from his letters were published later, scientific observations did not in the lyth. century circulate with the rapidity with which periodicals now pass from hand to hand, and his observations remained buried in the Transactions of the Royal Society. At all events pitcairne five years later did not know of them and was obliged with great mathematical skill to set -forth the nature of the pores or vasa minima in his dissertation on the Circulation of the Blood published in 1693 at Leiden 2). In 1695, pitcairne after his return to Scotland, published a dissertation upon the Cure of Fever by Evacuation, laying stress upon perspiration as the most important channel of evacuation. In this method of treatment he followed the recommendations of the great English physician thomas sydenham, who had died six years earlier. This dissertation is also characterised by a ma¬ thematical type of reasoning. The mathematical tendency of pitcairne had undoubtedly a great influence upon boerhaave, and is evident in boerhaave’s work Methodus Discendi Medicinam, published in 1727. Pitcairne’s teaching of medicine at Leiden was, however, said by bayle to be too geometrical to be popular3). Pitcairne was a writer of elegant Latin verses which were highly praised in a day when the writing of Latin verse was under- stood and appreciated, and several were translated into English by dryden, prior and other English poets. His admiration for the industry and perseverance of the people of Holland is indicated by the following ode, describing how they had built up their land with all the forces of nature arrayed against them: 1) See Leeuwenhoek, Den Waaragtigen Omloop des Bloeds, in Opuscula Selecta Neerlandicorum de arte medica, Vol. IX. 2) Pitcairne, Dissertationes Medicae. Rotterdam 1701 and Edinburgh 1713. 3) Bayle, Oeuvres diverses, Vol. IV, p. 732.