Skip to main content
SpringerLink
Log in

Sweat It Out

  • Chapter
  • First Online:
Bodily Fluids, Chemistry and Medicine in the Eighteenth-Century Boerhaave School

Part of the book series: Palgrave Studies in Medieval and Early Modern Medicine ((PSMEMM))

  • 211 Accesses

Abstract

Also a volatile fluid like sweat could undergo a drastic reconceptualisation. Thanks to Santorio Santori’s famous studies with the weighing chair, the ancient notion of insensible perspiration continued to be perceived as essential to one’s health. But despite its emphasis on quantification, Santorio’s work reflected long-standing views on perspiration closely aligned to digestion and health as balance of humours. Physicians of the Boerhaave school instead paid particular attention to the role of microscopic nerves and nervous juice. Johannes de Gorter’s study incorporated neurological descriptions to develop a more detailed theory of the internal physiology of perspiration. It allowed him to explain diseases like catarrh, and to justify the efficacy of his preferred treatment—sal ammoniac—which made his patients sweat out the disease.

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this chapter

Log in via an institution
Chapter
USD 29.95
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Available as PDF
  • Read on any device
  • Instant download
  • Own it forever
eBook
USD 99.00
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Available as EPUB and PDF
  • Read on any device
  • Instant download
  • Own it forever
Softcover Book
USD 129.99
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Compact, lightweight edition
  • Dispatched in 3 to 5 business days
  • Free shipping worldwide - see info
Hardcover Book
USD 129.99
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Durable hardcover edition
  • Dispatched in 3 to 5 business days
  • Free shipping worldwide - see info

Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout

Purchases are for personal use only

Institutional subscriptions

Notes

  1. 1.

    Johannes de Gorter, Morbi epidemii brevis descriptio et curatio per diaphoresin (Harderwijk, 1733), [*2v]. Emphasis added. De Gorter was a physician in Enkhuizen from 1712 to 1725. Between 1725 and 1754 he was the professor of medicine at the University of Harderwijk. On the life and works of De Gorter, see Aegidius W. Timmerman, ‘Johannes de Gorter: Een schets van zijn leven en werk’, Nederlands Tijdschrift voor Geneeskunde, 112 (1968), 35–41. On De Gorter’s surgery books and education, see Daniel de Moulin, A History of Surgery: With Emphasis on The Netherlands (Dordrecht, 1988), 157–63, 72–73. On the University of Harderwijk: J.A.H. Bots et al., eds., Het Gelders Athene: Bijdragen tot de geschiedenis van de Gelderse universiteit in Harderwijk (1648–1811) (Hilversum, 2000).

  2. 2.

    Antonius Stochius, Dissertatio medico-practico de morbo epidemico hac hyeme grassato, necdum cessante cum animadvers. in cel. J. Gorteri brevem descriptionem et curationem morbi epidemii per diaphoresin (Enkhuizen, 1733), 18; idem, Geneeskundige verhandeling over eene algemeene volk-ziekte, die deze winter gewoedt heeft en nog niet ophout, trans. Antonius Stochius, jnr (Enkhuizen, 1733), 17. Emphasis original.

  3. 3.

    Jerome J. Bylebyl, ‘Nutrition, Quantification and Circulation’, Bulletin of the History of Medicine, 51 (1977), 369–85, here 377–8. On the six non-naturals, see Lelland J. Rather, ‘The ‘Six Things Non-Natural’: A Note on the Origins and Fate of a Doctrine and a Phrase’, Clio Medica, 3 (1968), 337–47; Peter H. Niebyl, ‘The Non-Naturals’, Bulletin of the History of Medicine, 43 (1971), 486–92; Chester R. Burns, ‘The Nonnaturals: A Paradox in the Western Concept of Health’, The Journal of Medicine and Philosophy, 1 (1976), 202–11; Sandra Cavallo and Tessa Storey, eds., Conserving Health in Early Modern Culture: Bodies and Environments in Italy and England (Manchester, 2017); Rina Knoeff, ed. Gelukkig Gezond! Histories of Healthy Ageing (Groningen, 2017); James Kennaway and Rina Knoeff, eds., Lifestyle and Medicine in the Enlightenment: The Six Non-Naturals in the Long Eighteenth Century (London, 2020).

  4. 4.

    The knowledge of nerves, or a treatise on and description of the nerves, was called neurography or neurology. See, for example, Willem Séwel, A Compleat Dictionary English and Dutch, ed. Egbert Buys, 2 vols (Amsterdam, 1766), vol. 2, 513.

  5. 5.

    Lois N. Magner, A History of Medicine, 2nd ed. (Boca Raton, 2005), 263–6; Nancy G. Siraisi, ‘Medicine, 1450–1620, and the History of Science’, Isis, 103 (2012), 491–514, here 504–5; Fabrizio Bigotti, ‘A Previously Unknown Path to Corpuscularism in the Seventeenth Century: Santorio’s Marginalia to the Commentaria in Primam Fen Primi Libri Canonis Avicennae (1625)’, Ambix, 64 (2017), 1–14; idem, ‘The Weight of the Air: Santorio’s Thermometers and the Early History of Medical Quantification Reconsidered’, Journal of Early Modern Studies, 7 (2018), 73–103; Fabrizio Bigotti and David Taylor, ‘The Pulsilogium of Santorio: New Light on Technology and Measurement in Early Modern Medicine’, Societate si Politica, 11 (2017), 55–114.

  6. 6.

    Andrew Cunningham, The Anatomical Renaissance: The Resurrection of the Anatomical Projects of the Ancients (Aldershot, 1997); Fabrizio Bigotti, Physiology of the Soul: Mind, Body, and Matter in the Galenic Tradition of the Late Renaissance (1550–1630) (Turnhout, 2019).

  7. 7.

    Lucia Dacome, ‘Living with the Chair: Private Excreta, Collective Health and Medical Authority in the Eighteenth Century’, History of Science, 39 (2001), 467–500; ead., ‘Balancing Acts: Picturing Perspiration in the Long Eighteenth Century’, Studies in History and Philosophy of Biological and Biomedical Sciences, 43 (2012), 379–91.

  8. 8.

    Santorio Santori, Ars de statica medicina, sectionibus aphorismorum septem comprehensa (Venice, 1614).

  9. 9.

    On premodern notions and medical perceptions of sleeping and digestion, see Sasha Handley, Sleep in Early Modern England (New Haven, 2016); Sandra Cavallo and Tessa Storey, Healthy Living in Late Renaissance Italy (Oxford, 2013), 113–44; Karl H. Dannenfeldt, ‘Sleep: Theory and Practice in the Late Renaissance’, Journal of the History of Medicine and Allied Sciences, 41 (1986), 415–41.

  10. 10.

    Santorio Santori, De statica medicina et de responsione ad staticomasticem (Leiden, 1642), 55–80; idem, De ontdekte doorwaasseming des menschen lichaams, ed. Heydentryck Overkamp (Amsterdam, 1686), 66–100. The ounces refer to weight, not volume.

  11. 11.

    Santorio Santori, Commentaria in Artem medicinalem Galeni (Venice, 1612); idem, Commentaria in primam fen primi libri Canonis Avicennae (Venice, 1625); idem, Commentaria in primam sectionem Aphorismorum Hippocratis (Venice, 1629). Santorio also sent copies of these books to his friends. See, for example, Santorio Santori to Senatore Settala: ‘I send to His Lordship the two books on the Avicenna’s text and I pray His Lordship to read them carefully, because He will read new thoughts, yet based on the authorities of Hippocrates and Galen, as far as both practice and experience are concerned’. Santorio Santori to Senatore Settala, 27 December 1625, in Carlo Castellani, Alcune lettere di Santorio Santorio a Senatore Settala, Estratto dalla Rivista Castalia, Milan, 1958.

  12. 12.

    See preface in Santori, De statica medicina; idem, De ontdekte doorwaasseming.

  13. 13.

    Ephraim Chambers, Cyclopaedia, or, An Universal Dictionary of the Arts and Sciences, 2 vols (London, 1728), vol. 2, 359.

  14. 14.

    On Santori’s long-term influence, see Dacome, ‘Living with the Chair’; ead. ‘Balancing Acts’; and outside the realm of medicine, Lucia Dacome, ‘Resurrecting by Numbers in Eighteenth-Century England’, Past and Present, 193 (2006), 73–110.

  15. 15.

    Santorio Santori, De ontdekte doorwaasseming of de leidstar der genees-heeren, trans. Philippe La Grue (Amsterdam, 1683); idem, De ontdekte doorwaasseming des menschen lichaams, ed. Steven Blankaart, trans. Philippe La Grue, 2nd ed. (Amsterdam, 1684).

  16. 16.

    Thomas Secker, Disputatio medica inauguralis de medicina statica (Leiden, 1721); Hermannus Hulshof, Dissertatio medica inauguralis sistens febrem diariam benignam ex suppressa Sanctoriana perspiratione ortam (Groningen, 1740).

  17. 17.

    As quoted in Edward Tobias Renbourn, ‘The Natural History of Insensible Perspiration: A Forgotten Doctrine of Health and Disease’, Medical History, 4 (1960), 135–52, here 135–6.

  18. 18.

    Albrecht von Haller, ed. Praelectiones academicae in proprias institutiones rei medicae, 6 vols (Göttingen, 1739–1744), vol. 3, 576; idem, Dr. Boerhaave’s Academical Lectures on the Theory of Physic: Being a Genuine Translation of his Institutes and Explanatory Comment, 6 vols (London, 1742–1746), vol. 3, 307.

  19. 19.

    See Dacome, ‘Living with the Chair’; ead., ‘Balancing Acts’. For biographical details on Santorio see Fabrizio Bigotti, ‘Santorio, Sanctorius’, in Encyclopedia of Early Modern Philosophy and the Sciences, ed. Dana Jalobeanu and Charles T. Wolfe (Cham, 2020); Mirko D. Grmek, ‘Santorio, Santorio’, in Complete Dictionary of Scientific Biography, ed. Charles Coulston Gillispie, Frederic L. Holmes, and Noretta Koertge (Detroit, 2008), 101–4.

  20. 20.

    Antonio Clericuzio, ‘Chemical and Mechanical Theories of Digestion in Early Modern Medicine’, Studies in History and Philosophy of Biological and Biomedical Sciences, 43 (2012), 329–37.

  21. 21.

    See ‘Vita auctoris’ in Johannes de Gorter, Praxis medicae systema, ed. David de Gorter, 2nd ed. (Harderwijk, 1767), [**4r].

  22. 22.

    Johannes de Gorter, De perspiratione insensibili Sanctoriana-Batava tractatus experimentis propriis in Hollandia (Leiden, 1725). In good Boerhaave school-fashion, this work was dedicated to Boerhaave, who was praised as the source of all new insights De Gorter may have gained with this study. The book also included a laudatory endorsement by the professor. See De Gorter’s ‘dedicatio’ and Boerhaave’s letter in ibid., [*2r–*4v], [**r–**2v].

  23. 23.

    Anita Guerrini, ‘James Keill, George Cheyne, and Newtonian Physiology, 1690–1740’, Journal of the History of Biology, 18 (1985), 247–66; ead., ‘Keill, James (1673–1719),’ in Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2004); James Keill, Tentamina medico-physica ad quasdam quaestiones quae oeconomiam animalem spectant, accomodata: Quibus accessit Medicina statica Britannica (London, 1718).

  24. 24.

    De Gorter, De perspiratione insensibili, 103.

  25. 25.

    Ibid., 10–1. De Gorter compared his measurements to those found in Santori, Ars de statica medicina; Keill, Medicina statica Britannica.

  26. 26.

    De Gorter, De perspiratione insensibili, 12–3.

  27. 27.

    Mieneke te Hennepe, ‘Of the Fisherman’s Net and Skin Pores: Reframing Conceptions of the Skin in Medicine 1572–1714’, in Blood, Sweat and Tears, ed. Manfred Horstmanshoff, Helen King, and Claus Zittel (Leiden, 2012), 523–48.

  28. 28.

    Govard Bidloo, Anatomia humani corporis (Amsterdam, 1685), Tabula 4. On Bidloo’s atlas, see Rina Knoeff, ‘Moral Lessons of Perfection: A Comparison of Mennonite and Calvinist Motives in the Anatomical Atlases of Bidloo and Albinus’, in Medicine and Religion, ed. Ole Peter Grell and Andrew Cunningham (Aldershot, 2007), 121–43; Marian Fournier, ‘De microscopische anatomie in Bidloo’s Anatomia humani Corporis (1685)’, TGGNWT, 8 (1985), 197–208.

  29. 29.

    For example, while Ruysch maintained that the glands were simply the extremities of veins , and functioned to mechanically separate the fluids into smaller particles, Boerhaave perceived the glands as membranaceous follicles in which chemical processes prepared the fluids for secretion. Herman Boerhaave and Frederik Ruysch, Opusculum anatomicum de fabrica glandularum in corpore humano (Leiden, 1722); De Gorter, De perspiratione insensibili, 20. On the debate between Boerhaave and Ruysch, see Rina Knoeff, ‘Chemistry, Mechanics and the Making of Anatomical Knowledge: Boerhaave Vs. Ruysch on the Nature of the Glands’, Ambix, 53 (2006), 201–19.

  30. 30.

    De Gorter, De perspiratione insensibili, 19–22.

  31. 31.

    Herman Boerhaave, Institutiones medicae in usus annuae exercitationis domesticos digestae, 5th ed. (Leiden and Rotterdam, 1734), 224; Von Haller, Academical Lectures, vol. 3, 306.

  32. 32.

    On Abraham Kaau, see Irina Sjtsjedrova, ‘Abraham Kaau-Boerhaave: Bladzijden uit de biografie van een academicus’, in Noord- en Zuid-Nederlanders in Rusland, ed. E. Waegemans, J.S.A.M. Koningsbrugge, and Nadja Louwerse, Baltic Studies (Groningen, 2004), 293–312; Luuc Kooijmans, De geest van Boerhaave: Onderzoek in een kil klimaat (Amsterdam, 2014).

  33. 33.

    Abraham Kaau, Perspiratio dicta Hippocrati per universum corpus anatomice illustrata (Leiden, 1738). This title, ‘Perspiration over the Whole Body, as called by Hippocrates’, was a double reference: a paraphrase of Galen’s discussion of the expiration and inspiration of the body which, in turn, was referencing Hippocrates , Epidemics, book VI, section VI.

  34. 34.

    Ibid., 251–2.

  35. 35.

    Floyd L. Darrow, The Story of an Ancient Art: From the Earliest Adhesives to Vegetable Glue (Lansdale, PA and South Bend, IN, 1930). Von Haller may have used fish glue to imitate the ‘condensed glue’ between the dermis and epidermis. A similar interchange of sweat and fish glue can be found in ancient recipes for plasters. John Scarborough has described Andromachus’s strigil plaster, which was based on the dirty sweat gathered from the scrapings of a strigil—instrument with curved blade used by athletes—as an alternative to the isinglass plaster, in ‘Fish Glue (Gr. ΙΧΘΥΟΚΟΛΛΑ) in Hellenistic and Roman Medicine and Pharmacology’, Classical Philology, 110 (2015), 54–65, here 64–5.

  36. 36.

    Albrecht von Haller, Primae lineae physiologiae, 2nd ed. (Göttingen, 1751), 265–6; idem, Physiology: Being a Course of Lectures upon the Visceral Anatomy and Vital Oeconomy of Human Bodies, trans. Samuel Mihles, 2 vols (London, 1754), vol. 2, 4.

  37. 37.

    Thomas Willis, Cerebri anatome: Cui accessit nervorum descriptio et usus (Amsterdam, 1664), 149–89; J.T. Hughes, Thomas Willis, 1621–1675: His Life and Work (London, 1991).

  38. 38.

    De Gorter, De perspiratione insensibili, 20–1; idem, Morbi epidemii, 14–6. For his anatomical knowledge, De Gorter relied on the work of other anatomists and most likely his own observations. The University of Harderwijk had had a dissection room since the early eighteenth century, and De Gorter himself specialised in teaching anatomy and surgery to surgeons. For his anatomical lectures, De Gorter commented on the Anatomische Tabellen (first published in 1725) by Johann Adam Kulmus (1689–1745), the Leiden alumnus and professor of medicine at the Akademische Gymnasium in Danzig. See the lecture notes of Gerhardus Vermeer, ‘Comentaria ex ore Clarissimi Viri J. De Gorter excerpta’, Harderwijk, c. 1740. Leiden, University Library, BPL 1478.

  39. 39.

    Herman Boerhaave, ‘Praelectiones publice habitae de morbis nervorum’, Leiden, 1730–1735. S.M. Kirov Military Medical Academy, St Petersburg, MS XIII 11. Microfiche copy stored at University Library, Leiden, F 699. These lecture notes were transcribed, annotated, and translated by B.P.M. Schulte, Hermanni Boerhaave Praelectiones de morbis nervorum, 1730–1735: Een medisch-historische studie van Boerhaave’s manuscript over zenuwziekten (Leiden, 1959). A contemporary version, based on students’ lecture notes, appeared as Herman Boerhaave, Praelectiones academicae de morbis nervorum, ed. Jacob van Eems (Leiden, 1761). See also Rina Knoeff, ‘Herman Boerhaave’s Neurology and the Unchanging Nature of Physiology’, in Blood, Sweat and Tears, ed. Manfred Horstmanshoff, Helen King, and Claus Zittel (Leiden, 2012), 195–216.

  40. 40.

    Boerhaave, ‘De morbis nervorum’, 21 March 1732 in Schulte, De morbis nervorum, 152–5; Rina Knoeff, Herman Boerhaave (1668–1738): Calvinist Chemist and Physician (Amsterdam, 2002), 191–2.

  41. 41.

    Boerhaave, ‘De morbis nervorum’, 1 April 1732 in Schulte, De morbis nervorum, 154–5.

  42. 42.

    Kaau, Perspiratio dicta Hippocrati. On Albinus’s and von Haller’s work on the nerves and ideas of nervous juice, see Hendrik Punt, Bernard Siegfried Albinus (1697–1770) on ‘Human Nature’: Anatomical and Physiological Ideas in Eighteenth Century Leiden (Amsterdam, 1983); Hubert Steinke, Irritating Experiments: Haller’s Concept and the European Controversy on Irritability and Sensibility, 1750–90 (Amsterdam, 2005), 68, 110.

  43. 43.

    On the continuity between animals and plants in medical studies, see Fabrizio Baldassarri, ‘Botany and Medicine’, in Encyclopedia of Early Modern Philosophy and the Sciences, ed. Dana Jalobeanu and Charles T. Wolfe (Cham, 2020). See also Anita Guerrini, The Courtiers’ Anatomists: Animals and Humans in Louis XIV’s Paris (Chicago, 2015).

  44. 44.

    Abraham Kaau occasionally used the term ‘transpirare’ in his Perspiratio dicta Hippocrati. Some medical students preferred the term ‘transpiratio insensibilis’, see e.g. in Henricus Petrus Sigismundus Zehenphenningh, Dissertatio medico therapeutica inauguralis sistens quaedam therapiae specialis notamina circa abusus remediorum vomitoriorum, laxantium et sudoriferorum (Leiden, 1750), 10; Arthurus Magenis, Dissertatio medica inauguralis de urina (Leiden, 1753), 10. According to a contemporary English-Dutch dictionary, ‘perspiration’ and ‘transpiration’ were translated similarly. Compare ‘to Perspire, Uitwaassemen, uitdampen door de zweetgaten’ with ‘Transpiration, De ongevoelige uitwaasseming door de Huid’ in Séwel, A Compleat Dictionary, vol. 2, 575, 851.

  45. 45.

    Ursula Klein, ‘Experimental History and Herman Boerhaave’s Chemistry of Plants’, Studies in History and Philosophy of Biological and Biomedical Sciences, 34 (2003), 533–67, here 543.

  46. 46.

    Herman Boerhaave, A New Method of Chemistry: Including the Theory and Practice of that Art: Laid down on Mechanical Principles, and Accommodated to the Uses of Life, trans. Peter Shaw and Ephraim Chambers, 2 vols (London, 1727), vol. 1, 150–62; idem, Institutiones et experimenta chemiae, 2 vols (‘Paris’, 1724), vol. 1, 121–7.

  47. 47.

    Boerhaave, A New Method, vol. 2, 8; idem, Institutiones et experimenta chemiae, vol. 2, 14.

  48. 48.

    Boerhaave, A New Method, vol. 1, 379–80.

  49. 49.

    Ibid., vol. 2, 13. See also Alain Corbin, Le miasme et la jonquille: l’odorat et l’imaginaire social, 18e-19e siècles (Paris, 1982); translated as The Foul and the Fragrant: Odor and the French Social Imagination (Leamington Spa, 1986).

  50. 50.

    Boerhaave, A New Method, vol. 2, 12–3, 8.

  51. 51.

    Ibid., vol. 1, 168.

  52. 52.

    Cultural historians have studied the human experience of smell and stench, such as Corbin, The Foul and the Fragrant. But the case of spiritus rector shows how smell was not just a sensation in individuals, but rather considered a real, material thing.

  53. 53.

    Boerhaave, A New Method, vol. 2, 18.

  54. 54.

    Von Haller, Academical Lectures, vol. 3, 325. Boerhaave shared a variation of the same anecdote during his lectures on the diseases of the nerves, saying that a dog can distinguish a single deer from the herd solely on the basis of the smell of its perspiration. Boerhaave, ‘De morbis nervorum’, 1 April 1732 in Schulte, De morbis nervorum, 154–5.

  55. 55.

    Frank T. Brechka, Gerard van Swieten and His World 1700–1772 (The Hague, 1970); J.K. van der Korst, Een dokter van formaat: Gerard van Swieten, lijfarts van keizerin Maria Theresia (Amsterdam, 2003); Jacob Boersma, Antonius de Haen, 1704–1776: Leven en werk (Assen, 1963).

  56. 56.

    Jan Ingenhousz, Experiments upon Vegetables (London, 1779), 47–9; Handley, Sleep, 42. Ingenhousz is often heralded as the discoverer of photosynthesis. See for example Geerdt Magiels, From Sunlight to Insight: Jan IngenHousz, the Discovery of Photosynthesis & Science in the Light of Ecology (Brussels, 2010).

  57. 57.

    Catrien Santing, ‘Sleeping and Waking’, in Gelukkig Gezond! Histories of Healthy Ageing, ed. Rina Knoeff (Groningen, 2017), 80–97.

  58. 58.

    Boerhaave ‘De morbis nervorum’, 13 May 1732 in Schulte, De morbis nervorum, 164–5.

  59. 59.

    Michael Stolberg, ‘Sweat: Learned Concepts and Popular Perceptions, 1500–1800’, in Blood, Sweat and Tears, ed. Manfred Horstmanshoff, Helen King, and Claus Zittel (Leiden, 2012), 503–22, here 510–1.

  60. 60.

    Boerhaave ‘De morbis nervorum’, 1 April 1732 in Schulte, De morbis nervorum, 156–7; Onno van Nijf, ‘Exercise and Rest’, in Gelukkig Gezond! Histories of Healthy Ageing, ed. Rina Knoeff (Groningen, 2017), 60–79.

  61. 61.

    Henricus Buisen, Verhandelinge van de uitwerpingen des menschelyke lighaams, bestaande in pis, afgang, zweet, kwyl; en braaking (Rotterdam, 1731), 115–6.

  62. 62.

    Ibid.

  63. 63.

    Von Haller, Academical Lectures, vol. 6, 111.

  64. 64.

    Boerhaave, ‘De morbis nervorum’, 12 May 1732 in Schulte, De morbis nervorum, 162–3.

  65. 65.

    Buisen, Uitwerpingen, 115–6.

  66. 66.

    De Gorter, Praxis medicae systema, 171–2.

  67. 67.

    In the late eighteenth century, Joseph Franz von Jacquin, who inherited his father’s position as professor of botany and chemistry at the University of Vienna in 1797, still referred to Boerhaave’s concept in his discussion of the volatile, ethereal oil transpiring from plants. ‘The newer chemists regard it as a simple substance and they call this smell, aroma. Boerhaave called it the spirit of plants, spiritus rector’. Joseph Franz von Jacquin, Leerboek der algemeene en artsenijkundige scheikunde, trans. Gerardus Plaat, 2 vols (Leiden, 1794), vol. 2, 3.

  68. 68.

    Stolberg, ‘Sweat’, 510–1.

  69. 69.

    On the benefits of uroscopy, see Michael Stolberg, Uroscopy in Early Modern Europe, trans. Logan Kennedy and Leonhard Unglaub (Farnham, 2015).

  70. 70.

    De Gorter, Morbi epidemii, 5–7; idem, Korte beschryving van een algemene doorgaande ziekten, in deze tijd nog woedende, en desselfs genezing door sweetinge, trans. Amos Lambrechts (Amsterdam, 1733), 10–4.

  71. 71.

    Opregte Leydse courant, 15 February 1706.

  72. 72.

    A news item reported that a group of horse-drawn sleighs crossed the frozen sea (‘gisteren tusschen de 30 en 40 Paerden met Sleden van Stavoren tot Enckhuysen zijn overgekomen’) in Oprechte Haerlemsche Courant, 9 February 1709. See also Gebeurtenissen, voorgevallen in de maanden January en February, anno 1740 in, en veroorzaakt door de nooit meer gehoorde vehemente en strenge winter (Enkhuizen, 1740).

  73. 73.

    J.J. Meinsma, ‘Het scheikundig onderwijs aan de Gelderse Hogeschool (1648–1811) en Rijksathenaeum (1815–1818) te Harderwijk’, Scientiarum Historia, 14 (1972), 201–16, here 203.

  74. 74.

    Petrus Belkmeer, Disputatio inauguralis physiologico medica de motu ut causa et curatione generali omnium morborum (Harderwijk, 1735). After his graduation Belkmeer became a physician and teacher at the Baptist church in Enschede.

  75. 75.

    Johannes de Gorter, De perspiratione insensibili, 2nd ed. (Leiden, 1736), 339–42. A multitude of hygrometer designs circulated, all based on the principle of absorption levels of various materials. See Joachim d’Alencé, Verhandelingen over de barometers, thermometers, en notiometers of hygrometers (The Hague, 1730).

  76. 76.

    De Gorter, De perspiratione insensibili, 109.

  77. 77.

    De Gorter, Morbi epidemii, 3; idem, Doorgaande ziekten, 5.

  78. 78.

    Boerhaave, ‘De morbis nervorum’, 19 January 1731 in Schulte, De morbis nervorum, 88–9; Boerhaave, De morbis nervorum, 74.

  79. 79.

    Hieronymus David Gaubius, Institutiones pathologiae medicinalis (Leiden, 1758), 208; idem, The Institutions of Medicinal Pathology, trans. Charles Erskine (Edinburgh, 1778), 139.

  80. 80.

    De Gorter, Morbi epidemii, 4; idem, Doorgaande ziekten, 7–8.

  81. 81.

    De Gorter, De perspiratione insensibili, 26–35.

  82. 82.

    De Gorter, Morbi epidemii, 7; idem, Doorgaande ziekten, 15.

  83. 83.

    Johannes de Gorter, Medicinae compendium in usum exercitationis domesticae digestum, 2 vols (Leiden, 1731–1737), vol. 2, 218.

  84. 84.

    See s.v. ‘diaphoretica’ and ‘sudorifera’ in the ‘Index formularum medicinalium generalis’. Johannes de Gorter, Formulae medicinales cum indice virium quo ad inventas indicationes inveniuntur medicamina (Harderwijk, 1750), [H2v], [X4v].

  85. 85.

    De Farvacques, Medicina pharmaceutica, of Groote algemeene schatkamer der drôgbereidende geneeskonst, 3 vols (Leiden, 1741), vol. 1, 18. This book was originally published in 1681 but reprinted on Gaubius’ recommendation.

  86. 86.

    For numerous other drugs, see Buisen, Uitwerpingen, 184–5; Noël Chomel, Huishoudelyk woordboek: Vervattende vele middelen om zyn goed te vermeerderen, en zyne gezondheid te behouden, Met verscheiden wisse en beproefde middelen, trans. Jan Lodewyk Schuer and A.H. Westerhof, 2 vols (Leiden and Amsterdam, 1743), 1455.

  87. 87.

    De Gorter, Formulae medicinales. Under diaphoretica, it mentioned apozema, bolus, cataplasma, electuarium, emplastrum, epithema, fotus, guttulae, haustus, infusio, lavamentum, mixtura, pilulae, potio, pulveres interni, spiritus, and suffitus.

  88. 88.

    De Gorter, Morbi epidemii, 20–2; idem, Doorgaande ziekten, 71–7.

  89. 89.

    Boerhaave, A New Method, vol. 2, 224. Emphasis added.

  90. 90.

    Chambers, Cyclopaedia, vol. 1, 140. See also s.v. ‘Ammoniacum, Sal’, in the ‘Index medicamentorum’ in De Gorter, Formulae medicinales.

  91. 91.

    As suggested in Henricus Buisen, Practyk der medicine, ofte Oeffenende geneeskunde, 4th ed. (Rotterdam, 1743), 1–11.

  92. 92.

    De Gorter, Morbi epidemii; idem, Doorgaande ziekten, 22.

  93. 93.

    The De Gorter-Stochius debate prompted the publication of six pamphlets within a year. These are, in chronological order: Stochius, De morbo epidemico; De Gorter, Doorgaande ziekten; Stochius, Algemeene volk-ziekte; Henricus Vosch van Avesaet, Lapis lydius animadversionum expertissimi domini A. Stochii … J. Gorteri … brevem ejus descriptionem et curationem morbi epidemii per diaphoresin (Harderwijk, 1734); Cornelius Belkmeer, De streelende speel-pop van Dr. Antoni Stochius naakt uytgekleet en ten toon gestelt in de beschouwing rakende syne sogenaamde geneeskundige verhandeling en aanmerkingen over eene algemeene volk-ziekte (Enkhuizen, 1734); Anthonius Stochius, jnr, De streelende speel-pop van Dr. Cornelis Belkmeer, door hem eerst naakt uitgekleed, en onder den gewaanden naam van Be-Minnaar der Waarheid, door zynen kwalyk geslepen bril beschouwt, dog nu volkomen ontleed in haare mismaaktheid ten toon gesteld, en den poppemaker weder t’huis gezonden (Enkhuizen, 1734).

  94. 94.

    Stochius, De morbo epidemico; idem, Algemeene volk-ziekte.

  95. 95.

    Stochius, De morbo epidemico, 23–7; idem, Algemeene volk-ziekte, 21–6.

  96. 96.

    According to De Gorter, his publisher requested a reprint, but he first wanted to improve and elaborate on the text; De Gorter, De perspiratione insensibili, [***].

  97. 97.

    De Gorter, Medicinae compendium, vol. 2, 215.

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Institute for Medical Humanities, Durham University, Durham, UK

    Ruben E. Verwaal

Authors
  1. Ruben E. Verwaal
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Ruben E. Verwaal .

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

Copyright information

© 2020 The Author(s)

About this chapter

Check for updates. Verify currency and authenticity via CrossMark

Cite this chapter

Verwaal, R.E. (2020). Sweat It Out. In: Bodily Fluids, Chemistry and Medicine in the Eighteenth-Century Boerhaave School. Palgrave Studies in Medieval and Early Modern Medicine. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-51541-6_6

Download citation

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-51541-6_6

  • Published:

  • Publisher Name: Palgrave Macmillan, Cham

  • Print ISBN: 978-3-030-51540-9

  • Online ISBN: 978-3-030-51541-6

  • eBook Packages: HistoryHistory (R0)

Publish with us

Policies and ethics

Search

Navigation