Complete Record - Heirs of Hippocrates No. 855

GERARD VAN SWIETEN (1700-1772) Commentaria in Hermanni Boerhaave Aphorismos, de cognoscendis et curandis morbis. Apud viduam & filium Guillelmi Cavelier 1755-1773 Front. (Vol. I). 25.1 cm.

Swieten was one of Boerhaave's favorite and most famous pupils. He studied at Louvain and then at Leiden, where he received his medical degree in 1725. Swieten was Boerhaave's assistant in both the laboratory and the examining room, and his knowledge of shorthand made it possible for him to record Boerhaave's comments and remarks on his patients which he later published in this work. He became physician to Empress Maria Theresa in 1745 and after three years was made responsible for reorganizing and reforming medical education in Austria. As a result of his efforts, Vienna soon became one of the leading medical schools in the world. Swieten was not only a famous teacher and clinician, but he made many contributions to improve Austria's public health system and upgrade the practice of military medicine. His many activities left him little time to write, and this is his only medical work of note. Swieten labored over it for some thirty years, and it became one of the most widely read and frequently reprinted works of the eighteenth century. It is written in the Hippocratic manner, and the chapters on rheumatic fever, syphilis, and fevers are masterpieces of clinical description.

Cited references: Cushing S487 (2nd English ed., 1771); Garrison-Morton 2200 (1742 ed.); Waller 9393 (1754 ed.)

Gift of John Martin, M.D.