58 HISTOEY OF BOTANY. 



medicine, taking as his models Hippocrates and Sydenham. 

 In 1693 he took the degree of doctor of medicine, at the 

 University of Harderwyck, in Guelderland. In 1701 he 

 was chosen lecturer on the institutes of medicine at Leyden ; 

 and he commenced his duties by a discourse in favour of 

 the study of Hippocrates. In 1714 he became Eector of the 

 University. He was elected a member of the Academy of 

 Sciences of Paris in 1728, and of the Eoyal Society of 

 London in 1730. 



He had great zeal for Botany, extended the botanical 

 gardens at Leyden, and published many botanical memoirs. 

 He acquired a considerable fortune, and resigned the chair 

 of Botany and Chemistry in 1729. In his final address to 

 his pupils he reverted to the doctrines of Hippocrates, and 

 declared that man to be the first physician w4io knew how to 

 wait for, and second, the efi'orts of Nature. Boerhaave died 

 1738, at the age of sixty-nine. With all his learning he 

 seems to have been a humble christian; Haller speaks of 

 his venerable simplicity and his power of persuasion, and 

 states that he has often heard him say, when speaking of the 

 gospel precepts, that the Divine Teacher had shown in the 

 Bible far more knowledge of the human heart than Socrates 

 with all his wisdom. 



Among his numerous works may be noticed the botanical 

 ones — * Catalogue of Plants in the Leyden Garden,' and 

 * History of Plants.' 



It would be impossible, in a short notice, to do justice to 

 such a phenomenon as Haller. One of his biographers 

 (Dr. Willis) describes him as " one of the most learned and 

 indefatigable men the world has ever seen." We find in 

 him an early erudition like that of Avicenna, combined with 

 enormous intellectual power, diligently applied to original 

 research. 



Albrecht von Haller was born at Berne, in Switzerland, 



