The life and times of Gerhardt van Swieten / by Dr. A. G. Gerster.

  • Gerster, Arpad G. (Arpad Geyza), 1848-1923.
Date:
[1909]
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: The life and times of Gerhardt van Swieten / by Dr. A. G. Gerster. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by the Augustus C. Long Health Sciences Library at Columbia University and Columbia University Libraries/Information Services, through the Medical Heritage Library. The original may be consulted at the the Augustus C. Long Health Sciences Library at Columbia University and Columbia University.

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    [161] would yield abundant and extremely interesting stuff for the study of the man, his epoch, and the intricate and secret history of the fundamental work he did in establishing the first great clinical school of medicine. Such a biographical study would be worthy of the highest literary talent. Let us now rapidly construct the historical background which served as a setting to Van Swieten's life. At the time of his birth, Holland's position was in every way eminent. Having victoriously emerged from her eighty years' war for political and religious liberty, Protestant Netherlands ac- quired not only enormous wealth and prosperity through trade, but by the freedom of thought and speech her laws and customs encouraged, she became one of the acknowledged centers of intellectual progress. She was the safe refuge of the persecuted from all realms, of Protestants as well as of [162] revolted Catholics.. Those that prefer exile to conformity have always been distiaguished by intellectual elevation and force of character, hence we may say, that herein Holland was the gainer. Her flourishing schools were teeming with life and progress. Her printing industry had assumed truly amazing proportions. Everything censured and forbidden by church and court influence appeared in print at Amsterdam. In spite of the most unremitting vigilance, this intellectual contraband found its way across guarded frontiers, and reached those who were eager to receive and enjoy the forbid- den fruit. In Catholic France the revocation of the Edict of Nantes had extirpated Protestantism, and the issuing of the Papal bull Unigenitus having led to the wiping out of Port Eoyal and Jansenism, the domination of the Jesuits became unquestioned. In the hereditary crownlands of Aus- tria, the battle of the White Mountain had sounded the death- knell of Protestant resistance. Those whom the sword and the halter had spared, the irresistible pressure of confiscation and vexatious persecution compelled to emigrate. To this period (1730) America owes its Salzburger colonists who settled in Georgia, and indirectly the accession of the Moravians of Bethlehem. The interminable revolts in Hungary, provoked mainly though not altogether by religious causes, did not end \mtil the Peace of Szathmar, 1714, had guaranteed to