n6 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



of bloody matter and then of pure blood. For the removal thereof 

 he took certain scrapings, which seem to have been in anticipation 

 of the animal extracts of the present day, upon which the pains 

 grew less. Then he took a drink of goat's blood, and the spitting 

 of blood ceased in four days, leaving only a slight cough with a 

 moderate expectoration ; but the fever still remained, and was 

 followed by a pain in the spleen, for which he took wine boiled 

 with crabs' eyes, whereupon all the symptoms disappeared. 



Medicine was not only obscured by the vagaries of the chem- 

 ists, but knowledge was darkened by the theories of philosophers, 

 who sought by shutting their eyes to arrive at truth by purely 

 intellectual processes. Now, Boerhaave's teaching was an unceas- 

 ing protest against the errors of his times. His introductory ora- 

 tion at the beginning of his career as a teacher was one extolling 

 Hippocrates. To you, to whom the father of medicine is probably 

 little more than a name, it may be proper to mention that the 

 veneration in which he has been held is due to his having been 

 the first to found medical teaching upon naked and indisputable 

 facts. He was the nineteenth physician in succession in the same 

 family. The records of his forefathers, the fruits of travel, the 

 clinical experiences upon the isle of Cos, and the reports of his 

 pupils formed the material of his Observations, which still are 

 read with wonder and with profit. After him, from Galen to 

 Vesalius, great advances were made in anatomy, and Harvey had 

 discovered the circulation of the blood, but there was little con- 

 tributed to the practice of medicine until Sydenham the "im- 

 mortal Sydenham " Boerhaave loved to term him, though at that 

 time his merits had not been recognized by his own countrymen. 



The qualifications of Boerhaave for the reconstruction of 

 medicine were extraordinary. His memory was amazing. He 

 had a familiar acquaintance with the works of his predecessors 

 in medicine and in the kindred sciences. He conversed in Eng- 

 lish, French, and German, and could read easily Italian and 

 Spanish, so that few new reports from those countries escaped his 

 notice. He had studied with profit the writings of Lord Bacon, 

 of Sir Isaac Newton, and of Robert Boyle. He had followed with 

 eager interest the microscopic discoveries of Malpighi, Leuwen- 

 hoeck, and Ruysch, and he had a vision which could overlook the 

 entire field, and see all branches of knowledge in their proper 

 relations. With such gifts and training his Institutes of Medi- 

 cine, published in 1707, in which all the teachings in anatomy, 

 in physiology, and in pathology up to his time were, after the 

 severest personal scrutiny, made the foundation of the theory 

 and treament of disease, rapidly became the text-book of Europe 

 and of the East, and long remained in the hands of his pupils the 

 basis of medical teaching. Yet there were so-called "practical 



