HERMAN BOERHAAVE (1668-1738) Painting by Aert de Gelder (1645-1727) in the Mauritshuis a t the Hague. C o n l i b l c d by Tcnnry L. Davis
(See p.
732.)
HERMAN BOERHAAVE (1668-1738) Painting by Aert de Gelder (1645-1727) in the Mauritshuis at the Hague. (See p. 711.) Boerhaave was Professor of Medicine at Leiden and later Professor of Botany and Chemistry. Hoefer in his "Histoire de la chimie," after discussing the state of the learned societies of Enrope a t the heginning of the eighteenth century, s a y s " T h e Low Countries were the home of a man who, by his renown in Europe and by the extent of his knowledge, by himself alone was worth aim-t a whole academy. This man was Boerhaave." Thomas Thomson in his "History of Chemistry" calls him the mast celebrated physician that ever existed, if we Hippocrates."
Baerhaave's textbook of chemistry appeared in more than twenty-five editions in Latin, English, French, and German. Concerning it Thomas Thomson s a y s " H i s system of chemistry was undoubtedly the most learned and most luminous treatise on chemistry that the world had yet seen; it is nothing less than a complete collection of all the chemical facts and processes which were known in Boerhaave's time, collected from a thousand different sources and from writings equally disgusting from their ob-
scurity and their mystin'sm. Everything is stated in the la inest way, stripped of all mystery, and chemistry is shown as a science and an art of the first importance, not merely to medicine, but to mankind in general." The book Commences with a very interesting history of chernistry, and is remarkable for the fact that it nowhere makes any mention of phlogiston. It would probably never have been written if the "disgustful task" (hbor ingrafimimus) had not been forced upon its author. His students collated their lecture notes and in 1724 caused the "Znstifutione.,cf Espcrimcnta Chemiai' to be printed under Boerhaave's name as if it had been his own production. He disavowed the spurious work, and in 1732 published the "Elemcnta Chemioe" antographing the back of the title page of every copy of the first edition in order that the reader might be sure that it was really his writing. The "Znstitutimcr" and the ',Elemcnta" are, however, very much alike. The first seems really to represent the lectures as they were given, and is perhaps the more entertaining to read. Cottfribulrd by T m n e L. Davis
