Franciscus
Sylvius, a disciple of Van Helmont, established the first chemical
laboratory in Europe at Leyden, and to him is due the introduction of
modern clinical teaching. In 1664 he writes: "I have led my pupils
by the hand to medical practice, using a method unknown at Leyden, or
perhaps elsewhere, i.e., taking them daily to visit the sick at the
public hospital. There I have put the symptoms of disease before their
eyes; have let them hear the complaints of the patients, and have asked
them their opinions as to the causes and rational treatment of each
case, and the reasons for those opinions. Then I have given my own
judgment on every point. Together with me they have seen the happy
results of treatment when God has granted to our cares a restoration of
health; or they have assisted in examining the body when the patient has
paid the inevitable tribute to death."(39)
(39) Withington: Medical History from the Earliest Times,
London, 1894, pp. 312-313.
Glauber, Willis, Mayow, Lemery, Agricola and Stahl led up to Robert
Boyle, with whom modern chemistry may be said to begin. Even as late as
1716, Lady Mary Wortley Montagu in Vienna found that all had transferred
their superstitions from religion to chemistry; "scarcely a man of
opulence or fashion that has not an alchemist in his service.
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