hesis was at its height, and when the practical
part of his art was overrun and stultified by vile and silly nostrums"
("Horae Subsecivae," Vol. I, 4th ed., Edinburgh, 1882, p. 40).

Listen to what he says upon the method of the study of medicine: "In
writing therefore, such a natural history of diseases, every merely
philosophical hypothesis should be set aside, and the manifest and
natural phenomena, however minute, should be noted with the utmost
exactness. The usefulness of this procedure cannot be easily overrated,
as compared with the subtle inquiries and trifling notions of modern
writers, for can there be a shorter, or indeed any other way of coming
at the morbific causes, or discovering the curative indications than by
a certain perception of the peculiar symptoms? By these steps and helps
it was that the father of physic, the great Hippocrates, came to excel,
his theory being no more than an exact description or view of nature. He
found that nature alone often terminates diseases, and works a cure with
a few simple medicines, and often enough with no medicines at all."

Towards the end of the century many great clinical teachers arose, of
whom perhaps the most famous was Boerhaave, often spoken of as the Dutch
Hippocrates, who inspired a group of distinguished students. I have
already referred to the fact that Franciscus Sylvius at Leyden was the
first among the moderns to organize systematic clinical teaching. Under
Boerhaave, this was so developed that to this Dutch university students
flocked from all parts of Europe. After teaching botany and chemistry,
Boerhaave succeeded to the chair of physic in 1714. With an unusually
wide general training, a profound knowledge of the chemistry of the
day and an accurate acquaintance with all aspects of the history of
the profession, he had a strongly objective attitude of mind towards
disease, following closely the methods of Hippocrates and Sydenham. He
adopted no special system, but studied disease as one of the phenomena
of nature. His clinical lectures, held bi-weekly, became exceedingly
popular and were made attractive not less by the accuracy and care with
which the cases were studied than by the freedom from fanciful doctrines
and the frank honesty of the man. He was much greater than his published
work would indicate, and, as is the case with many teachers of the first
rank, his greatest contributions were his pupils. No other teacher of
modern times has had s