Boerhaave Research Articles

Charles Deering (c. 1690–1749): author of an early flora of Nottingham

George Charles Deering, born Georg Karl Dering (or perhaps Döring) in Dresden about 1690, practised as a physician in Nottingham from 1735 until his death in 1749. He was the author of an early flora covering the environs of Nottingham (1738) utilizing John Ray's nomenclature, and a posthumously published historical account of Nottingham (1751). He studied in Leiden under Herman Boerhaave and in Paris with the Jussieu brothers, and had close connections with Johann Jacob Dillenius and John Martyn the elder. Notable features of his flora are discussed, including the people with whom he worked, his first records of plants in England, and his early mention of phenology.

Boerhaave’s Mineral Chemistry and Its Influence on Eighteenth-Century Pharmacy in the Netherlands and England

In the eighteenth century, the use of mineral or fossil substances was relatively common in European medicine and pharmacy. However, this period also saw profound changes in ideas about the nomenclature, chemistry, and curative properties of minerals. Jonathan Simon has recently argued that an increasing orientation towards the mineral kingdom and the chemical transformation of minerals, and a rise in the number of mineral preparations demanded of the pharmacist, were characteristic for eighteenth-century chemistry within pharmacy. Yet in the Netherlands, and to a certain extent in England, another pattern is visible: although there certainly was an interest in the mineral kingdom and the chemical transformation of nonorganic materials, nothing suggests that this resulted in a strong increase in the demand for mineral-based pharmaceutical preparations – rather the contrary. Unlike English and French eighteenth-century pharmacy, Dutch pharmacy and its relation to academic medicine and chemistry have hardly received attention from historians of science thus far. This paper aims to fill that gap and argues that Herman Boerhaave’s (1668–1738) view on mineral medicine was crucial in the development of a certain wariness of “mineral medicine” in the eighteenth-century Netherlands and England, especially among apothecaries.

Criticizing Chrysopoeia? Alchemy, Chemistry, Academics, and Satire in the Northern Netherlands, 1650–1750

This essay argues that we should consider perceptions of and associations with alchemical language and practices in academic and artisanal as well as popular culture in the Netherlands in order to gain a better understanding of the supposed transformation of alchemy into chemistry in this region. A fresh view on the sites of Dutch chemistry around 1700 is provided, demonstrating that the unique sociopolitical and geological characteristics of the Low Countries meant that the process of the “disappearance” of alchemy was distinctly different from that in the neighboring German lands. Finally, the essay shows that, as Lawrence M. Principe has previously suggested, the rhetoric with which Herman Boerhaave and other Dutch academics rejected the “excesses of chemistry” was less empirically than morally and socially motivated.

Collectors of Natural Knowledge: The Edinburgh Medical Society and the Associational Culture of Scotland and the North Atlantic World in the 18Th Century

This paper reappraises the role of medical clubs and societies in the production and consumption of knowledge in 18th-century Scotland and the wider North Atlantic world. It focuses on the Edinburgh Medical Society, founded in 1731 by Alexander Monro primus; and on the student Medical Society, founded in 1734 and constituted in 1737 as the Medical Society of Edinburgh, ultimately becoming the Royal Medical Society of Edinburgh in 1778. The paper examines how Monro, as editor of the transactions of the Edinburgh Medical Society, sought to adapt medical learning to a world of polite sociability; and how that world came under pressure in the student Medical Society, where prevailing orthodoxies, such as the system of Herman Boerhaave and, later, William Cullen, were challenged. In the febrile atmosphere of the 1790s, William Thomson accused the Royal Medical Society of Edinburgh of promoting visionary theories and abandoning the proper experimental method in medical science. Yet with its overarching commitment to the sceptical and empirical principles laid down by the Royal Society of London (founded in 1660), the Royal Medical Society of Edinburgh provided a model for the establishment of similar clubs and societies on both sides of the Atlantic.

Herman Boerhaave, the Dutch Hippocrates, a Forgotten Father of Medicine

In today's medical community, when people say the name Herman Boerhaave, most assimilate it to Boerhaave syndrome. His influence on medicine is seen every day in hospitals around the world. His methodologies revolutionized medical education and the way physicians approach the examination of patients. It has been said that during the Age of Reason, he was the "Bearer of the Enlightenment of Medicine." He is a forgotten father of medicine. To preserve medical history, educators should give students a brief summary of the contributors to medicine to remind us how much of their lives they gave to further medical knowledge.

Blood, Sweat and Tears: The Changing Concepts of Physiology from Antiquity into Early Modern Europe

Preface and Acknowledgements Notes on the Editors Notes on the Contributors List of Illustrations Introduction Helen King PART ONE HISTORY OF PHYSIOLOGY IN CONTEXT: CONCEPTS, METAPHORS, ANALOGIES Physiologia from Galen to Jacob Bording Vivian Nutton Physiological Analogies and Metaphors. In Explanations of the Earth and the Cosmos Liba Taub The Reception of the Hippocratic Treatise On Glands Elizabeth Craik Between Atoms and Humours. Lucretius' Didactic Poetry as a Model of Integrated and Bifocal Physiology Fabio Tutrone Losing Ground. The Disappearance of Attraction from the Kidneys 85 Michael R. McVaugh The Art of the Distillation of 'Spirits' as a Technological Model for Human Physiology. The Cases of Marsilio Ficino, Joseph Duchesne and Francis Bacon Sergius Kodera The is a Battlefield. Conflict and Control in Seventeenth-Century Physiology and Political Thought Sabine Kalff Herman Boerhaave's Neurology and the Unchanging Nature of Physiology Rina Knoeff The Anatomy and Physiology of Mind. David Hume's Vitalistic Account Tamas Demeter More than a Fading Flame. The Physiology of Old Age between Speculative Analogy and Experimental Method Daniel Schafer Suffering Bodies, Sensible Artists. Vitalist Medicine and the Visualising of Corporeal Life in Diderot Tomas Macsotay PART TWO BLOOD Blood, Clotting and the Four Humours Hans L. Haak An Issue of Blood. The Healing of the Woman with the Haemorrhage (Mark 5.24b-34 Luke 8.42b-48 Matthew 9.19-22) in Early Medieval Visual Culture Barbara Baert, Liesbet Kusters and Emma Sidgwick The Nature of the Soul and the Passage of Blood through the Lungs. Galen, Ibn al-Nafis, Servetus, Itaki, 'Attar Rainer Bromer Sperm and Blood, Form and Food. Late Medieval Medical Notions of Male and Female in the Embryology of Membra Karine van 't Land The Music of the Pulse in Marsilio Ficino's Timaeus Commentary Jacomien Prins 'For the Life of a Creature is in the Blood' (Leviticus 17:11). Some Considerations on Blood as the Source of Life in Sixteenth-Century Religion and Medicine and their Interconnections Catrien Santing White Blood and Red Milk. Analogical Reasoning in Medical Practice and Experimental Physiology (1560-1730) Barbara Orland PART THREE SWEAT AND SKIN The Body without in the Homeric Poems Valeria Gavrylenko Sweat. Learned Concepts and Popular Perceptions, 1500-1800 Michael Stolberg Of the Fisherman's Net and Skin Pores. Reframing Conceptions of the Skin in Medicine 1572-1714 Mieneke M. G. te Hennepe PART FOUR TEARS AND SIGHT Vision and Vision Disorders. Galen's Physiology of Sight Veronique Boudon-Millot Early Modern Medical Thinking on Vision and the Camera Obscura. V.F. Plempius' Ophthalmographia Katrien Vanagt The Tertium Comparationis of the Elementa Physiologiae. Johann Gottfried von Herder's Coception of Tears' as Mediators between the Sublime and the Actual Bodily Physiology Frank W. Stahnisch PART FIVE BODY AND SOUL From Doubt to Certainty. Aspects of the Conceptualisation and Interpretation of Galen's Natural Pneuma Julius Rocca Metabolisms of the Soul. The Physiology of Bernardino Telesio in Oliva Sabuco's Nueva Filosofia de la Naturaleza del Hombre (1587) Marlen Bidwell-Steiner Full of Rapture. Maternal Vocality and Melancholy in Webster's Duchess of Malfi Marion A. Wells The Sleeping Musician. Aristotle's Vegetative Soul and Ralph Cudworth's Plastic Nature Diana Stanciu Index Locorum Index Generalis

Custom and Habit in Physiology and the Science of Human Nature in the British Enlightenment

In this paper I show how what came to be known as “the double law of habit,” first formulated by Joseph Butler in a discussion of moral psychology in 1736, was taken up and developed by medical physiologists William Porterfield, Robert Whytt, and William Cullen as they disputed fundamental questions regarding the influence of the mind on the body, the possibility of unconscious mental processes, and the nature and extent of voluntary action. The paper shows, on a particular topic, the overlap between eighteenth-century philosophical writings on the science of human nature on the one hand, and medical writings and lectures in physiology on the other. Other early modern writers discussed in the paper include René Descartes, Herman Boerhaave and David Hume.

Different shades of Newton: Herman Boerhaave on Newton mathematicus, philosophus, and optico-chemicus

SUMMARY In this paper I will probe into Herman Boerhaave's (1668–1738) appropriation of Isaac Newton's natural philosophy. It will be shown that Newton's work served multiple purposes in Boerhaave's oeuvre, for he appropriated Newton's work differently in different contexts and in different episodes in his career. Three important episodes in, and contexts of, Boerhaave's appropriation of Newton's natural philosophical ideas and methods will be considered: 1710–11, the time of his often neglected lectures on the place of physics in medicine; 1715, when he delivered his most famous rectorial address; and, finally, 1731/2, in publishing his Elementa chemiae. Along the way, I will spell out the implications of Boerhaave's case for our understanding of the reception, or use, of Newton's ideas more generally.

Predicting Alzheimer's disease: a polygenic hazard score.

This paper reappraises the role of medical clubs and societies in the production and consumption of knowledge in 18th-century Scotland and the wider North Atlantic world. It focuses on the Edinburgh Medical Society, founded in 1731 by Alexander Monro primus; and on the student Medical Society, founded in 1734 and constituted in 1737 as the Medical Society of Edinburgh, ultimately becoming the Royal Medical Society of Edinburgh in 1778. The paper examines how Monro, as editor of the transactions of the Edinburgh Medical Society, sought to adapt medical learning to a world of polite sociability; and how that world came under pressure in the student Medical Society, where prevailing orthodoxies, such as the system of Herman Boerhaave and, later, William Cullen, were challenged. In the febrile atmosphere of the 1790s, William Thomson accused the Royal Medical Society of Edinburgh of promoting visionary theories and abandoning the proper experimental method in medical science. Yet with its overarching commitment to the sceptical and empirical principles laid down by the Royal Society of London (founded in 1660), the Royal Medical Society of Edinburgh provided a model for the establishment of similar clubs and societies on both sides of the Atlantic.

Case of Hydropneumothorax Following Multiple Episodes of Vomiting

SESSION TITLE: Cardiothoracic Disorders SESSION TYPE: Case Report Slide PRESENTED ON: Saturday, April 16, 2016 at 04:00 PM - 05:00 PM INTRODUCTION: Boerhaave’s syndrome1 first described by Hermann Boerhaave in 1724 and by Barret in 1946. It is the most serious and rapidly fatal perforation of gastrointestinal tract. Classical presentation of a patient with this syndrome is vomiting, chest pain, and subcutaneous emphysema (Mackler’s triad); however, this classical triad is rare to found. Unusual presentation with variety of features makes it challenge to diagnose. CASE PRESENTATION: A 52 year male presented with respiratory distress, left side chest pain, and fever for six days. All these symptoms proceeded by 5 episodes of vomiting. A chest x-ray done by some other physician, which revealed left side pleural effusion about 300 ml fluid was aspirated, but there was no improvement in symptoms. At this time we received patient in our hospital. Patient was dyspnoeic with a respiratory rate of 38 breaths/min, pulse of 114 beats/min, and blood pressure of 130/74 mmHg. Clubbing, cyanosis, lymphadenopathy, or subcutaneous emphysema were absent. Chest examination revealed findings suggestive of left hydropneumothorax. A provisional diagnosis of left hydropneumothorax (iatrogenic) was made. Initial investigations haemoglobin of 10.8 mg/dL, total leucocyte count 14,600/mm3 with 75% neutrophils. Serum electrolytes, blood urea, liver function test and electrocardiogram were with in normal limits. chest x-ray showed a left sided hydropneumothorax. The patient was put on oxygen, and broad-spectrum antibiotics. A contrast enhanced computed tomography (CECT) scan and barium swallow was done. CECT showed a left sided hydropneumothorax and pneumomediastinum. Barium study showed a leakage of contrast to the mediastinum. Patient was immediately shifted to Cardio Thoracic Surgery for operative intervention. DISCUSSION: Boerhaave’s syndrome is the spontaneous transmural rupture of lower oesophagus. In the lower part of oesophagus there is lack of striated muscle and the vertical arrangement of longitudinal muscles, so there is a structural weakness in this part. Conditions like vomiting, childbirth, heavy weight lifting may cause increase in intra oesophageal pressure and results in spontaneous rupture of lower part of oesophagus. clasical Mackler’s triad is rare to found. So this condition is often miss diagnosed. Emergency operative intervention is the treatment of choice in most patients with Boerhaave’s syndrome. Thoracotomy with primary repair of the oesophageal rupture along with drainage of the pleural cavity and mediastinum is recommended if diagnosis is made within 24 hours of onset of symptoms2. The technique of bypassing of oesophagus along with feeding jejunostomy is recommended in patients who present late. CONCLUSIONS: This was a case of left side hydropneumothorax with pneumomediastinum secondary to oesophageal rupture (Boerhaave’s syndrome). Reference #1: Barret NR. Spontaneous perforation of the oesophagus: Thorax 1946;1:48-54. Reference #2: Hutter JA, Fenn A, Braimbridge MV. Br J Surg 1985;72:208-9. DISCLOSURE: The following authors have nothing to disclose: Mohit Bhatia, J. K. Samaria, Anand Bansal No Product/Research Disclosure Information

Johann Andreas Cramer and Chemical Mineral Assay in the Eighteenth Century

Although little studied now, the work of Johann Andreas Cramer (1710–1777) on mineralogy and metallurgy was much appreciated by his peers and influenced the development those fields throughout the eighteenth century. Well versed in the theoretical and practical problems of analysing and grouping minerals, Cramer sought to solve them by formulating a new, accurate system for identifying and classifying metals. He also developed faster and less expensive metal extraction methods than those previously available. This paper traces the chemical ideas that underpinned Cramer's novel methods, including the theories of Hermann Boerhaave and Georg Ernst Stahl, and shows where Cramer both followed and departed from these authorities in his own influential Elementa Artis Docimasticae (1739). In the process, I seek to map Cramer's scholarly network in order to contribute to a more thorough understanding of the communication of chemical ideas and procedures in eighteenth-century Europe.

John C. Powers. Inventing Chemistry: Herman Boerhaave and the Reform of the Chemical Arts. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2012. Pp. 272. $45.00 (cloth).

John C. Powers. <i>Inventing Chemistry: Herman Boerhaave and the Reform of the Chemical Arts</i>. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2012. Pp. 272. $45.00 (cloth).

Fire Analysis in the Eighteenth Century: Herman Boerhaave and Scepticism about the Elements

In the eighteenth century, many chemists asserted that chemical operations could not decompose a substance into its natural, constituent elements or principles. One such chemist was Herman Boerhaave (1668–1738), who claimed, following the work of Robert Boyle and Joan Baptista van Helmont, that examples of these alleged analyses were, in fact, not reductions of a body into elements, but rather the rearrangement of its particles by the fire. Since we cannot observe the shape and arrangement of particles directly, he reasoned, any claim regarding the elemental status of a substance was purely speculative and inadmissible in his chemistry. As a result, Boerhaave devised a system of chemistry which, in effect, accepted no elemental substances and which focused on understanding how the chemist's ‘instruments,’ including fire and chemical menstrua, effected changes in matter. I conclude by showing how Boerhaave's conclusion had ramifications for later developments in chemistry, especially those of the French Stahlians and of Antione Lavoisier.

Sir John Pringle MD, Early Scottish Enlightenment Thought and the Origins of Modern Military Medicine

AbstractSir John Pringle published Observations on the Diseases of the Army in April 1752. Over the next two decades it was proclaimed by French, British and German authors as the premier volume on the new subject of military medicine. Although Pringle's experiences in the War of the Austrian Succession furnished clinical substance, his education at St Andrews and Edinburgh universities, and medical instruction under Hermann Boerhaave, provided the enduring ethical foundation for the theory and practice of the art by medical and line officers.

John C. Powers. Inventing Chemistry: Herman Boerhaave and the Reform of the Chemical Arts.

John C. Powers. Inventing Chemistry: Herman Boerhaave and the Reform of the Chemical Arts.

Measuring Fire: Herman Boerhaave and the Introduction of Thermometry into Chemistry.

This essay examines Herman Boerhaave's work with the instrument maker, Daniel Gabriel Fahrenheit, on integrating the thermometer into the practice of eighteenth-century chemistry. Boerhaave utilized the thermometer to generate empirical evidence for the existence and actions of his instrument, "fire," by incorporating the instrument into pedagogical demonstrations, chemical research on heat, and, finally, the performing of operations. I examine how the use of the thermometer altered the chemists' traditional approach to heat, based on skilled sense perception and experiential judgment, and suggest that the threat to traditional practice posed by the instrument explains some of the resistance to it among some chemists in the mid-eighteenth century.

Spontaneous Rupture of Esophagus: Boerhaaveʼs Syndrome, Atypical Cause of Chest Pain

Introduction: Boerhaave's syndrome (BS) continues to be the most lethal perforation of the gastrointestinal tract with a mortality rate of around 40%. The key to survival is in early diagnosis and appropriate management. We present the case of a middle-aged man who presented with BS and received conservative management. Case: A 54-year-old man came to the hospital with complaint of tearing sensation in his lower chest after he tried to force down a beefsteak, which he felt got stuck in his throat. He mentioned that he has had multiple episodes of food getting stuck in throat in the past but he was able to resolve all of those by himself using fluids. This time, he developed intense pain and tearing-like sensation in his abdomen followed by spontaneous hematemesis. His chest X-ray on presentation did not show any abnormality and blood work revealed 13% eosinophilia. He underwent upper endoscopy, which showed severe grade D erosive esophagitis and also a 3-cm linear deep tear in the esophageal mucosa (Figure 1) involving the mid-esophagus with marked inflammation around it. There was no active bleeding. CT scan of chest was done, which showed pleural effusion and extra luminal air on the right side. He was managed conservatively with complete bowel rest and broad-spectrum intravenous antibiotics. The patient left against medical advice in less than 48 hours after admission. He was contacted 3 months later and he has been doing fine except for the persistent dysphagia.Figure 1Discussion: Herman Boerhaave, a Dutch physician, first described BS in 1724. The classic presentation of BS consists of Meckler's triad of vomiting, sudden severe chest pain, and subcutaneous emphysema, and the classic patient is one with a history of alcoholism or dietary excess. Our patient had none of these. Recently BS has been increasingly described in patients with eosinophilic esophagitis (EoE), which leads to inflammation in esophagus making it prone to rupture. Our patient had significant peripheral eosinophilia and history of persistent dysphagia both of which support EoE. Unfortunately he refused for further follow up EGD and biopsy, which may have helped him to get specific treatment if EoE is diagnosed. Conclusion: BS is a life-threatening emergency, and evaluation is necessary to find the cause of BS for appropriate management and to prevent any recurrences.

Times and Trends in the Treatment of Spontaneous Perforation of the Esophagus: From Herman Boerhaave to the Present Age

Spontaneous rupture of the esophagus is a rare devastating condition, which was first described by Herman Boerhaave in 1724. Only a handful of cases were recorded during the 18th and 19th centuries. Diagnosis was usually obtained on autopsy. Only in 1914 Irving Walker achieved the first antemortem diagnosis of spontaneous rupture of the esophagus. The dawn of thoracic surgery during the first decades of the 20th century opened up the way for operative cure. More than 200 years after Boerhaave's initial report, Barrett as well as Clagett and Olsen independently accomplished the first successful surgical treatment by primary repair of the esophageal lesion in 1947. Since those pioneer days, various suggestions for proper treatment have been made ranging from conservative, nonoperative means to extended procedures such as esophagectomy. Invention of minimally invasive surgery and endoscopic measures has further broadened the spectrum of available therapeutic options. The aim of this history article is to outline the development of diagnosis and management of spontaneous rupture of the esophagus from the age of Herman Boerhaave to the present times.

Historical Perspective: Harvey's epoch-making discovery of the Circulation, its historical antecedents, and some initial consequences on medical practice

In Harvey's Exercitatio Anatomica de Motu Cordis et Sanguinis in Animalibus of 1628, we see the mechanisms of the Circulation worked out more or less in full from the results of experimental demonstration, virtually complete but for the direct visual evidence of a link between the minute final terminations and initial branches of the arterial and venous systems, respectively. This would become available only when the capillaries could be seen under the microscope, by Malpighi. Harvey's amazingly modern order of magnitude analysis of volumetric circulatory flow and appreciation of the principle of continuity (mass conservation), his adroit investigational uses of ligatures of varying tightness in elegant flow experiments, and his insightful deductions truly explain the movement of the blood in animals. His end was accomplished. So radical was his discovery that early in the 18th century, the illustrious Hermann Boerhaave, professor of medicine at Leyden, declared that nothing that had been written before Harvey was worthy of consideration any more. The conclusions of De Motu Cordis are unassailable and beautiful in their simplicity. Harvey's genius and tireless determination have served physiology and medicine well.

Inventing Chemistry. Herman Boerhaave and the Reform of the Chemical Arts. By John C. Powers.

Inventing Chemistry. Herman Boerhaave and the Reform of the Chemical Arts. By John C. Powers.