Boerhaave and his Time

, are given in English transliteration. Mr. Ebied's industry (400 periodicals were consulted together with all major sources, Festschriften, congress proceedings, etc.) and the generosity of the Weilcome Trust have given medieval historians an indispensable reference work. In 1968 the tercentenary of Herman Boerhaave's birth was commemorated at Leyden with an International Symposium. This has now found permanency under the distinguished editorship of Dr. Lindeboom. The thirteen published contributions-nine in English, three in German and one in French-cast much helpful light upon one of the most paradoxical figures in the history of medicine. For although Boerhaave made no notable discoveries in any field, he had an enormous and lasting influence on medicine, chemistry, botany and general philosophy. During his lifetime Boerhaave was revered throughout the Western World and received pilgrimages from many of the leading cognoscenti of his day (including the Emperor of all the Russias). Yet this humble, self-effacing physician apparently only once made a journey outside the Leyden area-an expedition to defend his doctoral thesis at Harderwijk, less than sixty miles away. His evident determination to remain in one place was, however, the only major circumstance in which he differed from a modern professor of medicine. Boerhaave was indeed the first of this breed, and his eternal fame in medicine will rest upon his inauguration of modern clinical teaching at the bedside extending where necessary to post-mortem examination, together with his construction of a new medical science which embodied all that seemed best in the physical and biological sciences of the day. Boerhaave's great skill as a systematist is fully dealt with in this book by historians of chemistry and botany as well as medicine. In each of these fields Boerhaave's definitive textbooks had remarkably long active careers. His influence on botanical thought is probably least well known, and is delightfully presented by Dr. William Stearn. Apart from Boerhaave's own impressive Index alter Plantarum we learn of a small book by S6bastien Vaillant for which Boerhaave provided the impetus. This book revealed the hidden sexuality of the plant world so vividly that Uittien has complained 'ses comparisons soient parfois un peu risquees', while at the time it fired the imagination of the adolescent Carl Linnaeus. Linnaeus's subsequent visit to Boerhaave led among other things to the young botanist securing his all-important Anglo-Dutch patron, George Clifford. The influence of Boerhaave on medicine is dealt with by many of the …