nts, searching
into every part of medicine with the utmost diligence, teaching the
mathematicks, and reading the scriptures, and those authors who
profess to teach a certain method of loving God [36].

This was his method of living to the year 1701, when he was
recommended, by Van Berg, to the university, as a proper person to
succeed Drelincurtius in the professorship of physick, and elected,
without any solicitations on his part, and almost without his consent,
on the 18th of May.

On this occasion, having observed, with grief, that Hippocrates, whom
he regarded not only as the father, but as the prince of physicians,
was not sufficiently read or esteemed by young students, he pronounced
an oration, "de commendando studio Hippocratico;" by which he restored
that great author to his just and ancient reputation.

He now began to read publick lectures with great applause, and was
prevailed upon, by his audience, to enlarge his original design, and
instruct them in chymistry. This he undertook, not only to the great
advantage of his pupils, but to the great improvement of the art
itself, which had, hitherto, been treated only in a confused and
irregular manner, and was little more than a history of particular
experiments, not reduced to certain principles, nor connected one with
another: this vast chaos he reduced to order, and made that clear and
easy, which was before, to the last degree, difficult and obscure.

His reputation now began to bear some proportion to his merit, and
extended itself to distant universities; so that, in 1703, the
professorship of physick being vacant at Groningen, he was invited
thither; but he refused to leave Leyden, and chose to continue his
present course of life.

This invitation and refusal being related to the governours of the
university of Leyden, they had so grateful a sense of his regard for
them, that they immediately voted an honorary increase of his salary,
and promised him the first professorship that should be vacant.

On this occasion he pronounced an oration upon the use of mechanicks
in the science of physick, in which he endeavoured to recommend a
rational and mathematical inquiry into the causes of diseases, and the
structure of bodies; and to show the follies and weaknesses of the
jargon introduced by Paracelsus, Helmont, and other chymical
enthusiasts, who have obtruded upon the world the most airy dreams,
and, instead of enlightening their readers with explicatio