Hermann Boerhaave

“ CROKER.
[1171] On April 19 of this year he wrote: 'When I lay sleepless, I used to drive the night along by turning Greek epigrams into Latin. I know not if I have not turned a hundred.' Piozzi Letters, ii. 364. Forty-five years earlier he described how Boerhaave, 'when he lay whole days and nights without sleep, found no method of diverting his thoughts so effectual as meditation upon his studies, and often relieved and mitigated the sense of his torments by the recollection of what he had read, and by reviewing those stores of knowledge which he had reposited in his memory.' Works, vi. 284. ”

“ Some of his writings are so obscure and visionary as to be well nigh incomprehensible, yet he numbered among his admirers many learned and distinguished persons who sat at the feet of the "phylosophical shoemaker of Görlitz," and adopted his most remarkable opinions) , 1575-1624. "Do you hear the music? Now I go hence."
Boerhaave (Herman, Dutch physician and philosopher) , 1668-1738. "He that loves God ought to think nothing desirable but what is pleasing to the Supreme Goodness."
38 The reputation of Boerhaave as a physician and a man of learning is perhaps without a parallel in history. ”

“ Under these circumstances, he obtained his father's consent to apply himself to medicine, a study well adapted to his inclinations, as attracting his attention to physical pursuits. Another strong incitement to such investigations was presented by the contents of his father's museum, which he was employed in arranging and keeping in a proper state of preservation. "This occupation," says the learned Boerhaave, to whom we are indebted for an interesting Life of Swammerdam, "led him to examine natural objects, even from his childhood, with the greatest attention. ”

“ M. de Haller kept a good and abundant though plain table; he only drank water. At dessert only he allowed himself a small glass of liqueur drowned in an enormous glass of water. He talked a great deal of Boerhaave, whose favourite pupil he had been. He said that after Hypocrates, Boerhaave was the greatest doctor and the greatest chemist that had ever existed.
"How is it," said I, "that he did not attain mature age?"
"Because there is no cure for death. Boerhaave was born a doctor, as Homer was born a poet ”

“ In the library of the Faculty of Medicine in Paris there were found in 1877 ninety letters from Boerhaave to his friend Baron Bassand, physician to the Duke of Lorraine, afterward the Emperor Francis I. In one of these, written two weeks before his death, and intended for private eyes only, he says: "My malady gathers in force. The cardiac oppression due to polypi is constant, and of the last degree of cruelty. God wishes it thus. His perfect and sovereign will be glorified by the submission of his creature, who loves and adores only the infinitude of the eternal." ”

“ His brother, the mediciner in Aberdeen, never seems to have suggested that he should stay there, where there was really no systematic teaching of medicine, nor did his grandfather, Principal Chalmers, the Principal of King’s College.
To begin his study at Edinburgh, to continue it at Leyden, was the best suggestion that they could offer him, and it turned out excellently.
His professors in Edinburgh were Professor Monro, (the first) , who daily strove to make dry bones live, and succeeded; Professor Sinclair, who expressed Boerhaave’s teaching in his own very beautiful Latin ”

“ Boerhaave sat, and attended silently to this discourse for some time, till one of the company, willing to distinguish himself by his zeal, instead of confuting the positions of Spinosa by argument, began to give a loose to contumelious language, and virulent invectives, which Boerhaave was so little pleased with, that, at last, he could not forbear asking him, whether he had ever read the author he declaimed against. ”

“ Haller, Van Swieten, de Haën. Gaub, and Cullen.
Boerhaave's influence and dignity, which were astonishing, even in a physician, were based no less upon his encyclopaedic attainments than upon the benevolence and purity of his character. He was free from disputatiousness and vanity, although everywhere regarded as an oracle. His universal maxim was: "Simplicity is the seal of truth," although he never manifested this in his therapeutics. He employed the thermometer in the axilla in examining his cases, as did the iatrophysicists of the previous century. ”

“ The skill to which Boerhaave attained, by a long and unwearied observation of nature, ought, therefore, to be transmitted, in all its particulars, to future ages, that his successors may be ashamed to fall below him, and that none may hereafter excuse his ignorance, by pleading the impossibility of clearer knowledge. ”

“ Dr. Gronovius was so pleased with the manuscript of his "Systema Naturæ" that he requested to publish it at his own expense. By his advice, Carl waited upon the celebrated physician, Boerhaave, and after eight days gained admittance. So famous was this man that when the Emperor of China sent a letter to "Boerhaave, the famous physician in Europe," it easily reached him. He advised a rich banker, Mr. Clifford, to have Linnæus describe his magnificent collection of plants, and to send him to England and elsewhere, to collect specimens for him. ”

“ Boerhaave was a vigorous reformer, and did yeoman’s service in exploding the fallacies of dogmas. He was versed in the mathematical sciences and natural philosophy, and although too strongly mechanical in his notions, saw clearly the importance of bringing to bear upon medical inquiry a correlation of the sciences. The whole system which he inculcated may be judged of from the creed which he uttered— “Let anatomy faithfully describe the parts and structure of the body; let the mathematician apply his particular science to the solids ”

“ Brit.) The most important, dealing with the then distemper in horned cattle, were inserted in the 'Gentleman's Magazine' for 1746, pp. 650-1, and 1747, pp. 55-6 (cf. Gent. May. 1749, pp. 491-5) . Joseph Rogers, M.D., addressed to Mortimer in 1733 'Some Observations on the Translalation and Abridgment of Dr. Boerhaave's Chymistry,' and Boerhaave communicated to him in September 1738 the symptoms of his illness (Burton, Memoir of Boerhaave, p. 69) . Some account of the Roman remains found by him near Maldon in Essex is in the 'Archæologia,' xvi. ”

“ Boerhaave, finding this formidable opposition raised against his pretensions to ecclesiastical honours or preferments, and even against his design of assuming the character of a divine, thought it neither necessary nor prudent to struggle with the torrent of popular prejudice, as he was equally qualified for a profession, not, indeed, of equal dignity or importance, but which must, undoubtedly, claim the second place among those which are of the greatest benefit to mankind. ”

“ Nutrition and secretion belong to the operations of the soul; but he overlooked the fact that these are not peculiar to animals, but are characteristics of vegetables, which have no soul. Cheyne and Mead, Pater422field and Whytt in England inclined to Stahl’s views. Boissier de Sauvages defended them in France. Hoffman and afterwards Haller opposed them, the latter inventing the theory of Irritability.
Boerhaave (1668-1738) , professor of medicine at Leyden, was a man of varied and profound erudition, conversant with the teaching of the ancient philosophers and the Greek and Arabian physicians ”

“ Persons of strong and healthy constitutions are most liable to this natural impulse, when they awake, on account of the perspirable matter that lodges in the pores of the skin: hence Boerhaave observes, that yawning appears to be designed by Nature, to move, accelerate, and uniformly to distribute the humours throughout the system ”

“ The readers were unable to compete with a man fresh from the class rooms of Albinus and Gobius, and master of the lucid method of exposition which was the ground of the fame of Boerhaave; and while Alcock's unauthorised lectures were crowded, no one went to hear his opponents. ”

“ From thee, great God! we spring, to thee we tend,
Path, motive, guide, original, and end!'
In 1739, beside the assistance which he gave to the Parliamentary Debates, his writings in the Gentleman's Magazine [237] were, 'The Life of Boerhaave,'* in which it is to be observed, that he discovers that love of chymistry [238] which never forsook him; 'An appeal to the publick in behalf of the Editor;'† 'An Address to the Reader;'† 'An Epigram both in Greek and Latin to Eliza [239] ,'* and also English verses to her [240] ;* and, 'A Greek Epigram to Dr. ”

“ Boerhaave remarked that if a man wished to deserve or get a medical degree from ONE medical author let it be this. (James Atkinson: Medical Bibliography, 1834, 268.)
Born in 1682, Morgagni studied at Bologna under Valsalva and Albertini. In 1711, he was elected professor of medicine at Padua. He published numerous anatomical observations and several smaller works of less importance. The great work which has made his name immortal in the profession, appeared in his eightieth year, and represents the accumulated experience of a long life. ”

“ Boyle,' Hughes wrote in the 'Spectator' (No. 554) ,' was the person who seems to have been designed by nature to succeed to the labours and inquiries of that extraordinary genius. By innumerable experiments he, in a great measure, filled up those plans and outlines of science which his predecessor had sketched out.' Addison styled him (No. 531) 'an honour to his country, and a more diligent as well as successful inquirer into the works of nature than any other one nation has ever produced.' 'To him,' Boerhaave wrote, 'we owe the secrets of fire, air, water, animals, vegetables, fossils ”

“ Boerhaave, speaking of this very declaration of our Saviour, "Whosoever looketh on a woman to lust after her, hath already committed adultery with her in his heart," and understanding it, as we do, to contain an injunction to lay the check upon the thoughts, was wont to say that "our Saviour knew mankind better than Socrates." ”

“ Van Helmont said, “Whoever can make myrrh soluble by the human body has the secret of prolonging his days,” and Boerhaave had recognised that there was truth in this remark on account of the anti-putrefactive power of the myrrh. This was the power which tar possessed in so large a degree. Homberg had made gold by introducing the vital element in the form of light into the pores of mercury. The process was too expensive to make the production of gold by this means profitable, but the fact showed an analogy with the concentration of the same element in the tar. ”

“ The letter of recommendation from Boerhave was somewhat different to the one Linnæus had received at Vexio: “Linnæus, who hands you this letter, is the only one worthy to see you, and to be seen by you. Those who see you together look upon two men the peers of which the world does hardly possess.” After a stay in Paris, where the greatest scientists of France treated him with distinction, he returned to Holland, to find his friend Boerhave dying in Leyden. ”

“ And whatever power and might he gained, he could never stand in autumn evenings and lift up his finger and make all the stars break into song.
Something was past and gone for Peer. It was as if he were rowing away from a coast where red clouds hung in the sky and dream-visions filled the air—rowing farther and farther away, towards something quite new. A power stronger than himself had willed it so.
One Sunday, as he sat reading, the door opened, and Klaus Brock entered whistling, with his cap on the back of his head. ”

“ On the other hand, Hake’s acquaintance with Borrow’s works was far behind that of some Borrovians who did not know Lavengro in the flesh, such as Saintsbury and Mr. Birrell. Borrow was shy, angular, eccentric, rustic in accent and in locution, but with a charm for me, at least, that was irresistible. Hake was polished, easy and urbane in everything, and, although not without prejudice and bias, ready to shine generally in any society. ”

“ And yet the situation, even in the Transvaal, is not by any means so hopeless as it seems at first sight. People are just beginning to realize that they expected too much of the mere conclusion of peace, and that this attitude of the Boers is not in the least surprising. After all, they say, it is only reasonable that any conquered people should feel its position keenly. A people which began its separate existence, as the Boers did, in a national exodus, and ended it in a national war, must clearly have in an unusual degree the qualities of solidarity and self-respect. ”

“ No school is found on Boeroe, and the simple people assert with submissive sadness that nothing is done for them. The tone of regret suggests an underlying consciousness of the hopeless ignorance inevitable under the conditions of their narrow lot. The watery plain, covered with tangled verdure, extends to the foot of the twin peaks which merge into a low range of wooded hills, their lower slopes glistening with the grey-green foliage of the great kajopoetah trees. ”

“ He brought death to his senses, brought death to his memory, slipped out of his own self and into a thousand alien forms, he was an animal, was carrion, was stone, was wood, was water, and each time found himself ever more aware, light of sun or moon, became again himself, swang in the circle, felt thirst, overcame the thirst, felt the thirst anew. ”