Page:The growth of medicine from the earliest times to about 1800.djvu/475

 estimated at twenty millions, was found to have been reduced to about six millions. Whole towns and villages were laid in ashes, and as a consequence those who had survived the disaster lost confidence in themselves and were not able, at least for several years, to undertake anything in art, literature or science; and this depressing atmosphere affected in some degree the people of the Netherlands. Toward the end of the century, however, there came a marked awakening among the younger generation of physicians, and in the course of twenty or thirty years four men, only three of whom, however, were of German birth, succeeded in attaining a decided leadership in this department of science. The names of the Germans are Franz de le Boë (commonly spoken of as Sylvius), Friedrich Hoffmann and Georg Ernst Stahl. I shall now attempt to furnish, as nearly as possible in proper chronological order, very brief sketches of the lives of these distinguished physicians, together with an account of the contributions which they made to the science of medicine.

Franz de le Boë (Sylvius).—Franz de le Boë (Sylvius) was born at Hanau, Prussia, in 1614, of parents who belonged to the nobility and were wealthy, and who consequently were able to give their son every opportunity for acquiring an excellent education. Thus Franz first received a thorough training in philosophy and the classics and afterward visited in turn all the leading universities of Holland, France and Germany before he finally took his degree of Doctor of Medicine at Basel, Switzerland, in 1637. From this time forward, for a period of twenty-three years, he devoted himself to the practice of his profession, first in his native city and then in Leyden and Amsterdam. In 1660 he accepted an invitation to occupy the Chair of Medicine in the University of Leyden, and this position he held during the remainder of his life. He died in 1672.

As a teacher Sylvius was very popular, Boerhaave alone, at a later period, finding greater favor among the crowds of medical students and physicians who frequented this