Hoffmann also added not a little to his fame by the invention of a remedy which was first known as “Hoffmann’s drops,” but which to-day appears in the United States Pharmacopoeia under the name of “Hoffmann’s anodyne” or “spiritus aetheris compositus” (sulphuric ether, 325; alcohol, 650; ethereal oil, 25).
CHAPTER XXXIV
HERMANN BOERHAAVE OF LEYDEN, HOLLAND, ONE OF THE MOST DISTINGUISHED PHYSICIANS OF THE SEVENTEENTH CENTURY
Hermann Boerhaave, who was born at Voorhont, near Leyden, Holland, on December 31, 1668, was the son of a poor but highly educated clergyman; and it was owing to this circumstance that he received in early youth a most careful training in Latin and Greek and in belles-lettres. At the age of fourteen he entered the public school of Leyden, and made such rapid progress in his studies—history, mathematics, the different branches of natural philosophy, Hebrew and Chaldean languages, and metaphysics—that he was soon able to follow regularly the lectures given at the university. He was only fifteen at the time when his father died, leaving him absolutely penniless; but Van Alphen, the Burgomaster of Leyden, befriended him and furnished all the funds needed for a continuance of his studies at the university. But young Boerhaave, who was not willing to be entirely dependent on the aid thus provided, contributed to his own support not a little by giving private instruction to young students of the wealthy class. In 1690 he received the degree of Doctor of Philosophy, the subject of his dissertation being a refutal of the doctrines of Epicurus, Hobbes and Spinosa. His original intention had been to prepare himself for the ministry, but, after continuing his studies in theology for a short time, he determined that the better course for him would be to choose the career of physician. Accordingly he began, at the age of twenty-two, to study the anatomical treatises of Vesalius, Fallopius and Bartholinus, and at the same time he followed a course of instruction in dissecting, under the guidance of the anatomist Nuck, and also occasionally attended the lectures given by Drelincourt, who at that time was Professor of the Theory of Medicine. In his reading of medical literature he showed a decided preference for the writings of Hippocrates and Sydenham; and he devoted a large portion of his time to the study of botany and chemistry, two branches of the science of medicine in which he took a very strong interest all through life. In 1693 he received the degree of Doctor of Medicine from the University of Harderwyk.[83] In 1701 he was appointed Associate Professor of the Theory of Medicine in the University of Leyden, and it was in this capacity that he began building up that great reputation which in a very few years brought crowds of students from all parts of the world to Leyden. As already stated on a previous page, he owed a large part of his fame to the admirable manner in which he conducted his clinical teaching. To show how widely he was known throughout Europe the story is told that a letter which had been sent to him from a mandarin living in China and which bore the address, “To the illustrious Boerhaave, Physician in Europe,” reached him in due course.
Soon after his first appointment at Leyden, he received other most flattering offers, such as that of William the Third, Hereditary Prince of the Netherlands, to accept the position of Court Physician at The Hague, and a call from the University of Groningen (1703) to occupy the Chair of Medicine. He declined these offers as he preferred to remain at Leyden; but, a few years later, in 1709, he accepted the full professorship of the Practice of Medicine in the institution with which he was already connected. From the vantage ground of this more responsible position he was able most successfully to teach the students the best methods of observing, identifying and treating the different diseases; and as a further result of this promotion in rank his private practice grew rapidly, monarchs and princes coming from every country in Europe to consult him about their maladies. Boerhaave was also most popular among his fellow townsmen. It is related of him, for example, that on one occasion, after he had been confined to the house for about six months by an illness of a gouty nature, the citizens of Leyden manifested their joy at his recovery by inaugurating a general illumination of the town during the evening of the day on which he made his first appearance on the street. He had two relapses of the gouty affection, one in 1727 and another in 1729, and he finally died from disease of the heart on September 23, 1738. The monument raised in his honor by the city of Leyden bears the inscription: “Salutifero Boerhaavii genio sacrum” (Sacred to the memory of the health-giving genius of Boerhaave).
Some idea of the lucrative character of Boerhaave’s private practice may be gained from the fact that he left to his only child, a daughter, the sum of about four million francs. And yet he was noted for the generous gifts which he made during his lifetime to all sorts of scientific and benevolent objects.
Boerhaave, says Dezeimeris, exercised during his career, and also for a long time after his death, an immense influence upon medical thought. He is justly ranked, he adds, among the iatromathematicians, and it is correct to say that he was largely instrumental in overthrowing the chemical system which de le Boë (Sylvius) had developed. His own treatise on this branch of knowledge (“Elementa Chemiae”), which was published toward the end of his life, soon became the standard work on this subject, and it retained its popularity for many years. “It is to be regretted that, possessing as Boerhaave unquestionably did, remarkable powers of observation, he should have allowed himself, in opposition to the very principles which he advocated so strongly, to indulge in the making of systems and hypotheses. He commenced by advocating with enthusiasm the method of Hippocrates, and ended by following the brilliant but not very trustworthy example of Galen.” (Dezeimeris.)
The number of treatises which Boerhaave published is quite large, the most important among them being the following: “Oratio de commendando studio Hippocratico,” 1701; “Institutiones medicae in usus annuae exercitationis domesticos,” 1708; “Aphorismi de cognoscendis et curandis morbis in usum doctrinae medicae,” 1709 (English version printed in London in 1742); and “Elementa chemiae,” 1732 (English translation by Peter Shaw, London, 1741).
Of the “Aphorisms,” one of the most widely known of Boerhaave’s published treatises, I shall take the liberty of saying a few words. This work is in reality a very concise statement of the author’s views regarding pathology, pathological anatomy and therapeutics, and I believe that the following paragraphs, although few in number, will suffice to give our readers a fair idea of the general character of the book. At the same time I must confess that I have not found it an easy matter to understand and satisfactorily digest many of the individual aphorisms, the text of which has been compressed into such a small space. It therefore does seem surprising to learn from one critic that, if one wishes to ascertain what Boerhaave’s views are with regard to the science of medicine, one should read by preference the Commentaries of Van Swieten, who was Boerhaave’s favorite pupil and assistant.
The following four or five aphorisms are typical specimens belonging to the earlier sections of the book:—[84]
(7.) A disease when present in a body, must needs be the bodily effect of a particular cause directed to that body.