Boerhaave: Three Chairs to Oblivion

Abstract

manded in biophysics today, sees himself spending about 12 years in higher education. The genius of today, like Boerhaave in the 17th century, could conceivably hold a university chair in botany, in chemistry, and in medicine, at Berkeley or Cambridge; and if he did, posterity would not forget him soon. Why then have we forgotten Herman Boerhaave-or perhaps we never knew of him? It is conceivable that in the late 17th