The Luminati of Leiden: From Bontius to Boerhaave

In the glittering canopy of the history of great medical centers of Europe, none was more viviscent than Leiden. Although wealthy nations nurtured gre at medical establishments in Padua, Salerno, Montpellier, and Paris, it was from a diminutive market town in The Netherlands that a group of medical c ognoscenti arose whose intellectual prowess blazed across the intellectual firmament of seventeenth and eighteenth century Europe. The tradition of me dical excellence established by Bontius was amplified by the surgeon Peter Paaw, whose stewardship of the Anatomical Theater guided it to heights comp arable to those achieved at Padua. At the same time, Clusius established a botanical garden that would have no rival fur two centuries. The multitalen ted Sylvius educated some of the greatest minds of the generation, accepted the Harveian theories of circulation, and succeeded in fostering an intell ectual environment characterized by novel ideas and tolerance of thought. v an Horne defined and chartered the existence of lymphatic circulation, and Bartholin destroyed the myth of the liver as a source of blood. Exalting in the freedom of thought, the cabal of Ruysch, Steensen, de Graaf, and Swamm erdam banded together under Sylvius and van Horne and made significant adva nces in pancreatic, lymphatic, reproductive, and respiratory physiology. Th ere is little doubt, however, that of all the great names linked with Leide n, it is Boerhaave's that is universally held to be synonymous with that of the city. As a clinician, scientist, and teacher, the aura of his knowledg e and fame spread to the farthest corners of Europe. Without doubt, the gre at medical schools of Edinburgh, Vienna, and Gottingen owe their subsequent potency to him. Thus the legacy of Leiden provides the richest of all eart hly concepts-an appreciation of the unique spiritual power and intellectual wealth that devolves from the pursuit of the life of the mind.