Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 47.djvu/122

114 preach. On the advice of his three steadfast friends—Van Alphen, his earliest patron; Trigland, the most famous of the instructors in the theological department; and Van der Berg, for some time burgomaster, a man of wealth and great influence—Boerhaave decided not to risk a refusal, but to devote his life to the practice of medicine.

He had already a reputation for prodigious powers of intellect, and those who knew his easy mastery of every subject to which he directed his attention anticipated for him a most brilliant future. Yet for a long time few patients sought his counsel. While awaiting at Leyden the advent of remunerative practice, he was invited by a prime favorite of King William to settle at the Hague and to establish himself as a court physician. But this temptation he resolutely put aside. He devoted the waiting period which falls to the lot of most young physicians to teaching mathematics, to work in a laboratory which he fitted up in his own domicile, and to reading the Scriptures and those authors who best teach the true way of loving God.

It may be interesting to state that Leyden, in the seventeenth century, according to the account of John Mollett, was "rich and prosperous, beautiful, clean, and pleasant, abounding in handsome houses, intersected with canals of fast-running water, its broad streets planted with trees; its houses of red brick, faced with white masonry, shadowed the pathways with their projecting gables; and their ornamentation of arches, festoons, and medallions carved with quaint and heraldic devices completed a style of architecture that was characteristic and charming. Above these houses rose a large and splendid Town Hall, two beautiful Gothic churches, and a number of buildings originally dedicated to religious but at that time to secular uses."

The city, in the height of its prosperity, had a population of nearly one hundred thousand souls. The most perfect order prevailed. At the same time there were everywhere activity, vigor, and exuberance of life. It had a wide fame for the product of its looms, and Leyden cloth, Leyden baize, and Leyden camlet became familiar terms at home and abroad. It was the birthplace of Rembrandt, Jan Steen, and Gerard Douw. Important works of every kind issued from its printing presses. The classic editions of the Elzevirs of Leyden are still the book-lover's delight.

In this favorable environment, Boerhaave's mental powers were ripened by observation and study. In 1701, in his thirtythird year, he was induced by his friends, on the death of Drelincourt, to lecture on the institutes of physic. His success was