556 PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS. [aNNO 17 10. 



in making water; constant desire to urine, though in great misery after. When 

 the water stood a while, there appeared a greasy substance on its surface, not 

 unlike the cream or ice found on the top of aqua calcis vivae ; sometime after, 

 it deposited a purulent matter in great quantity, but without any offensive smell: 

 the water when made was thick and whitish, but when the corruption settled to 

 the bottom of the pot, it became clear. He seldom complained of any great 

 pain in his back or loins ; whence they concluded the ulcer was in the neck of 

 the bladder, though the vast discharge of matter was an argument of the con- 

 trary : but he was always on the rack when he rose up after sitting, and it was 

 a great difficulty to him to get up, which perhaps was occasioned by the weight 

 and pressure of the kidney and adjacent indurate glands, lying on the head of 

 the psoas muscle, and quadratus lumborum. He had often a total suppression 

 of urine; but was much relieved by sal succini and corn, cervi. He took several 

 doses of cantharides with camphire, without any ill effect from the fly, but had 

 little relief as to his distemper. For 3 weeks past he was seized with a violent 

 looseness, which at last, in spite of all means, carried him off. 



An Account of a Booky intitled, Index Plantarum Horti Lugduno-Batavi, per 

 Herman. Boerhaaven.* Lugduni Batav. 17 10. 8vo, p. 278. N° 325, p. 35. 

 The author. Dr. Boerhaave, has in this catalogue given the world an early 

 specimen of his knowledge in botany, he being elected professor of that science 



* This celebrated professor was born at Voorhout, near Leyden, in l668. He applied himself at 

 first to the study of divinity, which he afterwards relinquished for that of physic. He read lectures 

 for some years on botany and chemistry, in the university of Leyden ; and was afterwards elected 

 professor of physic j in which situation he displayed such superior talents, that while he continued to 

 fill the medical chair, Leyden was resorted to by students of all nations as the best school of physic. 

 He died in 1738, aged 70; distinguished as much by his piety and the amiable qualities of the heart, 

 as by his erudition, eloquence, and genius. The following are among his principal works : Institu- 

 tiones Medicae; Aphorism! de cognoscendis et curandis Morbis; Elementa Chemiae; Methodus 

 Studii Medici. Besides these, and his Praelectiones in proprias Institutiones, he wrote a number of 

 academical Orations, and other small tracts on medical subjects, and published editions of Aretaeus, 

 Vesalius, Piso, Prosper Alpinus, &c. His Praelectiones, and Method. Studii Medici were edited 

 by Haller, with considerable additions. His Aphorisms have been voluminously commented upon 

 by Van Swieten. 



Boerhaave was a great admirer of the ancients, the study of whose works he strongly recom- 

 mended to all his pupils. In his Aphorisms he imitated the brevity and simplicity of Hippocrates. 

 He held Aretaeus next in estimation after Hippocrates ; and among modern practical writers he gave 

 the preference to Sydenham. He was doubtless too much addicted to the humoural pathology j not 

 perceiving that almost all the various forms of disease may be referred to altered impressions made upon, 

 or altered actions produced in, the cerebral, fibrous and vascular systems ; that the chemical changes 

 (seldom ascertainable during life) which take place in the blood and other fluids, are the consequence 

 of altered actions in the aforesaid solid parts; and therefore that in the treatment of the various 



