Sect. 111.] Thconj and Practice of Physic. 32? 



of the eighteenth eeutury*. lie was the eollea.i^ie 

 and ri\al of Stahl in the university of Ilallc, and 

 a most learned and voluminous writer. For more 

 tljan fifty years he llonrished as a practitioner and 

 author, enjoyed a splendid reputation, and added 

 greatly to tlie mass of medical science. 



lIofTmann had the discernment early to perceive 

 the errour of those who sufferetl themselves to he 

 led away by the hyi)0thetical doctrines of the hu- 

 moral pathologij, and the otiicr wild opinions then 

 prevailing among the chemical and mechanical theo- 

 rists. He set himself to cultivate and improve 

 what Boerhaave had neglectt^l. He diligently un- 

 dertook to explore the functions and diseases of the 

 oieri'ous system, and wisely concluded that noxious 

 causes much more generally affect the solid moiiug 

 poivcrs than the fluids of tiie animal body. He ad- 

 mitted indeed into his system some portion of the 

 mechanical,Cartesian,and chemical doctrines which 

 had previously prevailed; but these did not blind 

 him to the light which he derived from the patho- 

 logy of the nervous system. According to him, 

 atom) and spasm are the great sources of disease ; 

 and he proceeded so far as to maintain that all m- 



- Frederick Hoffmann ^vas born at Magdeburg in the year 

 xmo. The principal circumstances much known in the lite ot 

 rhisiHustrious physician are, that he travelled mto England and 

 Holland, where he became acquainted witli Robert Boyle and 

 Paul Hermann ; that he never received any professional tees bemg 

 supported by his annual stipend j Uiat he cured tiic emperor 

 ClKU-lcsVI, and Frederick \ kin- of Prussia, of inveterate d.sca!^-s j 

 and that he had a very accurate and extensive knowledge, tor that 

 day, of rtie nature and virtues of mineral waters. Hotlmann sur- 

 vived his setli yeari and his works were printed at (nueva. in 

 /ix volumes folio, iu 1 740. 



