Pictures from the Past of the Healing Arts / Orvostörténeti Közlemények – Supplementum 18-19. (Budapest, 2000)
Pictures from the Past of the Healing Arts - Guide to the Exhibition
3. Medical theory and practice in the 18th century The Dutch Hermann Boerhaave (1668-1738) dominated the field both of theory and practicc in 18th century medicine. He taught medicine at Leyđeñ University and lectured almost on every subject of this sciencc. He was titled totius Europae praeceptor, the tutor of whole Europe. His scientific works came to be textbooks at many European universities and were published at several times. His most important contribution to međ¡çinç was the introduction of bedside teaching (i.e. teaching at the patient's beside) and thus clinical medicine became an essential part of mcdical instruction. One of Boerhaave's pupil was Albrecht von Ha ler (1708-1777), a university professor at Gð ingen. He studied at Tübingen, then at Leÿden under Boerhaave and Bernard Siegfried Albinus (1697-1770), and was graduated in 1728. After visiting London, Oxford and Paris, he went to Basle in 1728 where he began to deal with botany. These cities represent the places, where a would-be physician ought to have visited, though Padua and Montcpcllicr arc missing from this list. He began to practise as a physician in Bern in 1730. A great pioneer of physiology he was, but an excellent physician, botanist and poet as well. We have presented his work the Primae lineae physiologiae (First Lines of Physiology), published in 1747, in which he first declares and proves that anatomy and physiology cannot be separated from each other. His greatest work the Elernenta physiologiae corporis humani (The Elements of the Physiology of Human Body), which appeared between 1757 and 1766, had been one of the most famous books of physiological research for almost a ccntury. Although, Giovanni Battista Morgagni (1682-1771) had established his reputation as an accurate anatomist with his Ad ver:saria anatómiça (1706-1719), his great work, which made pathological anatomy a science the De sedibus et causis morborum per anatomem indagatis was brought out only in 1761, when he was eighty years old. A professor of anatomy at the University of Padua, he diverted medicine into new channels of perfection. His important contribution to medicine was the discovery that certain diseases bring about specific lesion in the organs and according to these symptoms the disease itself can be diagnosed. The recognitions of Morgagni contributed to the development of pathological medicine and as a result the possibility of casual treatment could be maintained. Significantly in Hallcr's and Morgagni's works their theoretical systems and their practical results are of equal importance. In the show-case below their portraits there arc two table microscopes on wooden stands (No. 11) and a small portable microscope with a copper handle. Morgagni is commemorated with a edition of his completed works, an Opera Omnia published in 1765. 50
