The Evil Eye, Thanatology, and Other EssaysPark, Roswell
Religion
The Evil Eye, Thanatology, and Other Essays
Park, Roswell
Bruno, Giordano, 1548-1600; Evil eye; Knights of Malta; Medicine; Mythology; Religion; Students
But we can hardly delay longer here and at this time with the subject
of heroism in medicine. I shall not have completed the matters which
I wish to present to you to-day until I invite your attention to a
short sketch of the careers of four or five of the men who, during the
past two or three hundred years have set the example for men of all
times and most climes, whose lives are so replete with that which is
interesting, instructive or important that they may be well held up
before a graduating class as illustrations of everything which may be
advantageously imitated. They belong to that class of whom Longfellow
wrote:
"Lives of great men all remind us
We can make our lives sublime."
One of those was Jean Fernel, who was born in France about 1497 and
died in 1558. I do not know that his life history offers anything so
very startling, although he came to be regarded as the most memorable
physiologist of his generation, but he adopted a motto which I think
we all might well select for our own, and it was because of this motto
that I have mentioned his name at this point. It was this: "_Destiny
reserves for us repose enough._" If each of you will take this
individually to himself he will find in it stimulus enough for all
kinds of hard work.
The first of the eminently great men now to be mentioned in this
connection was Herman Boerhaave, born in 1668 and died in 1738. He
enjoyed the reputation of being perhaps the most eminent physician who
ever lived. The eldest son of a poor clergyman with a large family, he
was originally intended for theology, and with this in view studied
philosophy, history, logic, metaphysics, philology and mathematics,
as well as theology. A mere accident, resulting from intense party
spirit and doctrinal differences, prevented his devoting his life to
theology, and he turned next to mathematics and then to chemistry and
botany, subsequently studying anatomy and medicine. He graduated in
1693 and began at once to practice in Leyden, with such success that
he was early offered the position of ordinary surgeon to the king,
which, however, he had the moral courage to decline. Subsequently
he taught medicine and botany, to which chairs was also added later
that of chemistry. This fact of itself will show to you something
of the condition of medical science of that day, when one man could
teach chemistry, botany and medicine. His rarest talents, however,
were developed in the direction of clinical instruction, and in this
particular field he won such repute that hearers were attracted to
Leyden from all quarters of the world and in such numbers that no
university lecture-room was large enough to contain them. His practice
grew in extent and remunerativeness in pace with his reputation, and
when he died he left an estate of two millions. So famous was he that
it is said of him that a Chinese official once sent to him a letter
addressed simply "To the Most Famous Physician in Europe." That he had
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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