HISTORY OF THERAPEUTICS 17 



tics, lived in Paris from 1517 to 1590, and became known through his use of 



ligatures on the blood-vessels in operations. 



Sydenham. — Thomas Sydenham, 1624 to 1689, physician in London, 

 reformed practical clinical medicine, bringing it back to the methods of nature 

 and of experience. Symptoms of diseases were regarded by him as the effort 

 of nature to eliminate the disease materials. The tincture of opium was 

 named after him Tinctura Sydenhami. 



4. BOERHAAVE 



Biographical. — Herman Boerhaave was bom in the Netherlands 

 in 1668, the son of a clergyman. He became professor of medicine, 

 botany, and chemistry in Leyden, where he published his cele- 

 brated works: " Institutiones medicae in usum annuae exercitionis" 

 (1708) and "Aphorismi de cognoscendis et curandis morbus" 

 (1709). In addition to these, he published the "Elementa chemiaB" 

 (1718). He died in 1738. His best-known pupil was van Swieten 

 (1700-1722), the private physician of the Empress Maria Theresa 

 and the founder of the Vienna school. 



The System of Boerhaave. — Boerhaave can be regarded, to a 

 certain extent, as the founder of the modern humoral pathology, 

 since he pointed to the chemical changes in the composition of the 

 blood as the cause and essence of disease. His humoral pathology 

 is therefore a haemato-pathology. The treatment recommended by 

 him was the removal from the blood of the injurious substances or 

 irritants by means of cathartics, diuretics, disinfectants and resol- 

 vents. He assumed the presence of different kinds of harmful 

 irritants in the blood: acid, alkahne, salty, fatty and glutinous. 

 In his opinion organic life consisted of motion. Fever he regarded 

 as the effort of life to overcome death (compare the concurrence of 

 this view with the modern idea that fever is a protective reaction 

 against the infectious material) . Worthy of note also is his concep- 

 tion of inflammation, which he regarded as a complete stasis of 

 blood in the smaller vessels. 



F. Hoffmann. — Founder of the so-called iatromechanical or mechanico- 

 dynamic school; bom in Halle 1660; professor in Halle 1694; private physician 

 to King Frederic I and professor in Berlin 1708 to 1712; died in Halle in 1742. 

 His name is preserved in the preparation introduced by birn known as "Hoff- 

 mann's drops." 

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