The Story of my Life

that during his tenure of the Chair at Leyden 2,000 doctors matriculated. Among his pupils were von Haller at Gottingen-the master physiologist of his time, van Swieten and de Haen (the leaders of the 'old Vienna' School), Gaub of Heidelberg, Eller and Buddeus of Berlin, Cullen ofboth Glasgow and Edinburgh, Sir John Pringle, and indeed many others who spread his teachings throughout Europe. All nine members of the newly-established Faculty of Medicine at the University of Edinburgh in 1725 (including Alexander Monro primus) had matriculated at Leyden and studied under Boerhaave, and through Edinburgh his teaching spread to North America. Haller's tribute-Communis Europae sub initio hujus sacculi praeceptor-was richly merited. Boerhaave certainly shone as a bedside teacher, but as Lindeboom points out, there were pioneers in this field before him. Giovanni Battista da Monte (Montanus) had taught at the bedside after his appointment to the Chair of Medicine in the University of Padua in 1543, and this was followed in Europe by der Straten of Utrecht in 1636, and in Leyden in 1637, though little enthusiasm was shown for it at Leyden, except by Boerhaave's predecessor, Sylvius, until Boerhaave was himself appointed lecturer in Medicine there. Lindeboom describes in detail Boerhaave's contributions to chemistry (perhaps of greater originality than those to medicine) and to botany, including his interest in, and support of (although not without its reservations) Carl Linnaeus. It is impossible to pay just tribute to this outstanding biography of Herman Boerhaave in this brief notice. For all interested in the history of medicine in the eighteenth century this work is indispensable; it is a searching and accurate analysis of a many-sided genius and his works, presented with an elegance, felicity and distinction of style that many a practised author, native to these isles, might envy. COHEN OF BIRKENHEAD