Herman Boerhaave
31 December 1668 – 23 September 1738
Herman Boerhaave was a Dutch physician, botanist, and chemist regarded as the founder of modern clinical teaching, instructing students at the bedside in Leiden. His textbooks Institutiones Medicae and Elementa Chemiae systematized medicine and chemistry for all of Europe, and students flocked to Leiden from across the continent to hear him. He simultaneously held the Leiden chairs of medicine, botany, and chemistry.
Lived at the same time
Well-documented people whose lives overlapped with Herman Boerhaave.
- Edmond Halley (1656–1742) Overlapped 70 years →
- Giambattista Vico (1668–1744) Overlapped 70 years →
- Jonathan Swift (1667–1745) Overlapped 70 years →
- Antonio Stradivari (1644–1737) Overlapped 69 years →
- Daniel Defoe (1660–1731) Overlapped 63 years →
- Mary Astell (1666–1731) Overlapped 63 years →
Life events
Herman Boerhaave was born the son of a Protestant pastor in the village of Voorhout in the Dutch Republic.
Source: en.wikipedia.orgBoerhaave entered the University of Leiden in 1684 and took his degree in philosophy in 1690 with a dissertation on the distinction of mind and body.
Source: en.wikipedia.orgHaving turned from theology to medicine, Boerhaave took the degree of Doctor of Medicine at the University of Harderwijk.
Source: en.wikipedia.orgBoerhaave was appointed lecturer on the institutes of medicine at Leiden, beginning the teaching career that would make the university Europe's leading medical school.
Source: en.wikipedia.orgBoerhaave's textbook of physiology and medicine went through many editions and translations and was used across Europe for decades.
Source: en.wikipedia.orgBoerhaave was made professor of botany and medicine and head of the Leiden botanical garden, which he greatly enlarged and enriched with new species.
Source: en.wikipedia.orgBoerhaave married Maria Drolenvaux, the daughter of a wealthy Leiden merchant; of their four children, only their daughter Maria Joanna survived to adulthood.
Source: en.wikipedia.orgWith his appointment to the chair of chemistry, Boerhaave simultaneously held the Leiden professorships of medicine, botany, and chemistry.
Source: en.wikipedia.orgBoerhaave's two-volume chemistry textbook, based on his lectures, became one of the most influential chemical works of the eighteenth century.
Source: en.wikipedia.orgBoerhaave died after a long illness and was buried in the Pieterskerk in Leiden, mourned by admirers across Europe.
Source: en.wikipedia.org