[1] Thucydides (v. 38), in speaking of the “four councils of the Boeotians,” is referring to the plenary bodies in the various states.
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. He then turned to the study of medicine, in which he graduated in 1693 at Harderwyck in Guelderland. In 1701 he was appointed lecturer on the institutes of medicine at Leiden; in his inaugural discourse, De commendando Hippocratis studio, he recommended to his pupils that great physician as their model. In 1709 he became professor of botany and medicine, and in that capacity he did good service, not only to his own university, but also to botanical science, by his improvements and additions to the botanic garden of Leiden, and by the publication of numerous works descriptive of new species of plants. In 1714, when he was appointed rector of the university, he succeeded Govert Bidloo (1649-1713) in the chair of practical medicine, and in this capacity he had the merit of introducing the modern system of clinical instruction. Four years later he was appointed also to the chair of chemistry. In 1728 he was elected into the French Academy of Sciences, and two years later into the Royal Society of London. In 1729 declining health obliged him to resign the chairs of chemistry and botany; and he died, after a lingering and painful illness, on the 23rd of September 1738 at Leiden. His genius so raised the fame of the university of Leiden, especially as a school of medicine, that it became a resort of strangers from every part of Europe. All the princes of Europe sent him disciples, who found in this skilful professor not only an indefatigable teacher, but an affectionate guardian. When Peter the Great went to Holland in 1715, to instruct himself in maritime affairs, he also took lessons from Boerhaave. His reputation was not confined to Europe; a Chinese mandarin wrote him a letter directed “To the illustrious Boerhaave, physician in Europe,” and it reached him in due course.
His principal works are—Institutiones medicae (Leiden, 1708); Aphorismi de cognoscendis et curandis morbis (Leiden, 1709), on which his pupil and assistant, Gerard van Swieten (1700-1772) published a commentary in 5 vols.; and Elementa chemiae (Paris, 1724).
BOETHUS, a sculptor of the Hellenistic age, a native of Carthage (or possibly Chalcedon). His date cannot be accurately fixed, but was probably the 2nd century B.C. He was noted for his representations of children, in dealing with whom earlier Greek art had not been very successful; and especially for a group representing a boy struggling with a goose, of which several copies survive in museums.
BOETIUS (or Boethius), ANICIUS MANLIUS SEVERINUS (c. A.D. 480-524), Roman philosopher and statesman, described by Gibbon as “the last of the Romans whom Cato or Tully could have acknowledged for their countryman.” The historians of the day give us but imperfect records or make unsatisfactory allusions. Later chroniclers indulged in the fictitious and the marvellous, and it is almost exclusively from his own books that trustworthy information can be obtained. There is considerable diversity among authorities as to his name. One editor of his De Consolatione, Bertius, thinks that he bore the praenomen of Flavius, but there is no authority for this supposition. His father was Flavius Manlius Boetius, and it is probable that the Flavius Boetius, the praetorian prefect who was put to death in A.D. 455 by order of Valentinian III., was his grandfather, but these facts do not prove that he also had the praenomen of Flavius. Many of the earlier editions inserted the name of Torquatus, but it is not found in any of the best manuscripts. The last name is commonly written Boethius, from the idea that it is connected with the Greek βοηθος; but the best manuscripts agree in reading Boetius.