CHAPTEK VI. 

 EIGHTEENTH CENTUEY. 



§ 1. BOERHAAVE, HaLLEE, DiLLENIUS. 



There is very great variety in the botanical Hterature of 

 the eighteenth century, and a great number of fresh plants 

 from all parts of the world v/ere discovered and described. 

 It would occupy too much space to give more than a passing 

 notice of a few of these writers, reserving the greater part of 

 this chapter for Linneus, because, without instituting any 

 comparison between him and other botanists who were his 

 contemporaries, it is without doubt he who has the chief 

 merit of inventing our present system of nomenclature, which 

 is the subject we have principally in hand. I select these 

 contemporaries of Linneus for previous mention : Boerhaave, 

 Haller, and Dillenius. 



Hermann Boerhaave, born at Voorhout, about two miles 

 from Leyden, 1668, was one of the most celebrated physicians 

 of the eighteenth century. He was carefully educated by 

 his father, who intended him for the clerical profession, and 

 he made such rapid progress in his studies that at eleven 

 years of age he understood Greek and Latin. When sixteen 

 years old Boerhaave lost his father, who left a family of nine 

 children, in but poor circumstances. After much study, in 

 which he greatly distinguished himself, in mathematics, 

 philosophy and theology, he finally devoted himself to 



