THE ILLUSTRIOUS BOERHAAVE. 115 



such that at the end of his course his delighted pupils prevailed 

 upon him to instruct them in chemistry likewise. 



Two years later he was invited to a vacant professorship at 

 Groningen, which he declined with grateful acknowledgments. 

 Thereupon his trusty friend Van der Berg, President of the 

 Burgomasters and one of the seven curators of the university, in- 

 duced the authorities to increase his salary, and to promise to him 

 the first vacancy in the regular professorships. This did not occur 

 until 1709, when, on the death of Dr. Hotton, he was made Pro- 

 fessor of Medicine and of Botany. 



By the aid of returning captains, at a time when Dutch ships 

 ruled the sea, and by a system of exchanges with noted corre- 

 spondents, in ten years he had doubled the number of plants in 

 the botanical garden. Crocodiles, turtles, and other strange crea- 

 tures were imported from distant settlements in the Indies. The 

 bamboo, the papyrus, the palm, the coffee plant, trees of cinna- 

 mon, camphor, and mahogany could be seen growing in the open 

 air and in hothouses. The plants were especially remarkable for 

 their strength and vigor. In their classification Boerhaave pre- 

 pared the way for Linnaeus. 



In 1714 Boerhaave was elected to the rectorship of the univer- 

 sity " of their Noble High Mightenesses' University of Leyden," 

 he terms it in his correspondence and in the same year was ap- 

 pointed Professor of Physic in place of Prof. Bidloo, and to a posi- 

 tion in the University Hospital. By this time his fame had out- 

 grown its local limits, and students flocked to him from all parts 

 of the world. When he began his public teachings, the doctrines 

 of Van Helmont and Paracelsus were held in high favor. Indeed, 

 he tells us that the works of the former he read through seven 

 times and those of the latter four times. Van Helmont he re- 

 garded rather as a philosopher than as a physician, as his boasted 

 remedies fell far short of their promised efficiency. Yet Paracel- 

 sus swore by his own soul, and calls every god in heaven to wit- 

 ness, that with one single remedy he was able to cure all diseases, 

 be they what they would ; and in another place he declares that no 

 one need scruple about getting certain secrets of physic from the 

 devil, and boasts of holding conversations with Galen and Avi- 

 cenna at the gates of hell. By the school of Paracelsus it was 

 claimed that the doctrine of transmutation was contained in the 

 Pentateuch, in the books of Solomon, and in the Revelation of St. 

 John. 



Van Helmont's methods are illustrated by an account he gives 

 us of how he treated himself for pneumonia. In 1640, in the sixty- 

 third year of his age, he was seized with a fever, attended with a 

 slight shivering which made his teeth chatter; a pricking pain 

 about the sternum, a difficulty of respiration, and a spitting first 



