Huygens Boerhaave

“ Providence seldom sends any into the world with an inclination to attempt great things, who have not abilities, likewise, to perform them. To have formed the design of gaining a complete knowledge of medicine, by way of digression from theological studies, would have been little less than madness in most men, and would have only exposed them to ridicule and contempt. But Boerhaave was one of those mighty geniuses, to whom scarce any thing appears impossible, and who think nothing worthy of their efforts, but what appears insurmountable to common understandings. ”

“ The diligence with which he pursued his studies, is sufficiently evident from his success. Statesmen and generals may grow great by unexpected accidents, and a fortunate concurrence of circumstances, neither procured nor foreseen by themselves; but reputation in the learned world must be the effect of industry and capacity. Boerhaave lost none of his hours, but, when he had attained one science, attempted another; he added physick to divinity, chymistry to the mathematicks, and anatomy to botany. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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 ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Huygens is the grand seigneur of the republic, the type of aristocratic oligarchy, the jewel and ornament of Dutch liberty. When we consider his imposing character and the positive value of his writings, we may well be surprised that he has not found a modern editor. It is a disgrace to Dutch scholarship that no complete collection of the writings of Huygens exists. ”

“ 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 ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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 ”

“ Its faults as the Dutchman thought were lack of ‘distinguished perspicuity’ and intricacy in its invention. But Huygens must have lived to regret his criticisms, however well founded they were, for with a sudden burst of the M’Gregor spirit, Professor James sent forth a volley of answers, his official statements through the medium of the Philosophical Transactions, and his unofficial through his many letters. Neither his great opponent, nor his great opponent’s allies were spared. ‘I am not yet so much a Christian as to help those who hurt me. ”

“ Huygens had little of the sweetness of Hooft or of the sublimity of Vondel, but his genius was eminently bright and vivacious, and he was a consummate artist in metrical form. The Dutch language has never proved so light and supple in any hands as in his, and he attempted no class of writing, whether in prose or verse, that he did not adorn by his delicate taste and sound judgment. A blind admiration for John Donne, whose poems he translated, was the greatest fault of Huygens, who, in spite of his conceits, remains one of the most pleasing of Dutch writers. ”

“ BOER, the Dutch form of the Eng. “boor,” in its original signification of husbandman (Ger. Bauer) , a name given to the Dutch farmers of South Africa, and especially to the Dutch population of the Transvaal and Orange River States. (See South Africa and Transvaal.)
BOERHAAVE, HERMANN (1668-1738) , Dutch physician and man of science, was born at Voorhout near Leiden on the 31st of December 1668. Entering the university of Leiden he took his degree in philosophy in 1689, with a dissertation De distinctione mentis a corpore, in which he attacked the doctrines of Epicurus, Hobbes and Spinoza. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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 ”

“ 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 had now for nine years read physical lectures, but without the title or dignity of a professor, when, by the death of professor Hotten, the professorship of physick and botany fell to him of course.
On this occasion he asserted the simplicity and facility of the science of physick, in opposition to those that think obscurity contributes to the dignity of learning, and that to be admired it is necessary not to be understood. ”

“ There they were, Spahl and Foursmith and Ricketts and Huygens and Devree, each one looking as if he had come down from a different world. They ruled the city.
"Why did you take me in?" he asked.
"There were reasons," Huygens, the double-header, said resonantly.
Always reasons, Kesley thought. And everyone knows them but me.
"This Daveen—he's not a mutant, is he?" Kesley asked.
"No," Foursmith said. "I saw him once, in the court of Duke Winslow. He is very tall, without hair, and blind. He's not one of us." ”

“ 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 ”

“ When the joint was served, the schoolmaster rose and tapped his glass. This was Fru Thora’s great moment, and she felt her heart beat with joy and [Pg 218] pride, for there had been so much ill-will between the schoolmaster Heggen and Knut Norby. Now Heggen was standing there, and was going to make a speech in honour of his enemy. This was her work. And there had been many misunderstandings between the schoolmaster and the old magistrate; but she had made Heggen take the magistrate’s daughter in to dinner; for they should all be friends this evening, and learn to understand one another. ”

“ 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. ”

“ The manuscripts and drawings of the Biblia Naturæ were deposited by Boerhaave in the library of the University of Leyden.
The works of Swammerdam contain more original and accurate observations than those of any naturalist who preceded him, excepting Aristotle. He refuted numerous errors committed by his predecessors, and carried his observations to a degree of minuteness and accuracy truly astonishing; but it is not a little surprising that he succeeded less in describing [Pg 134] the structure of large objects than in delineating the organs of the most minute. ”

“ 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." ”

“ In 1627 Huygens married Susanna van Baerle, and settled at the Hague; four sons and a daughter were born to them. In 1630 Huygens was called to a seat in the privy council, and he continued to exercise political power with wisdom and vigour for many years, under the title of the lord of Zuylichem. In 1634 he is supposed to have completed his long-talked-of version of the poems of Donne, fragments of which exist. ”