[Boerhaave: a brilliant mind and a virtuous character].

Hermann Boerhaave (1668-1738), a physician and humanist, is considered one of the most influential clinicians and professors of the eighteenth century. He was a medical teacher in Leiden, Holland, reaching great fame and celebrity in his city and around, extending outside of Europe into China. His contemporaries would name him "Europe's professor". He obtained his academic degrees in philosophy, chemistry and botany, but continued in medicine which more befit his nature. This brilliant man declared himself in favour of experimental knowledge instead of theory and, following Thomas Sydenham, he greatly contributed in making clinical medicine more systematic. In some extent he was the founder of academic hospitals. Boerhaave was an affectionate, cheerful and correct man, an admirable example of moderation, vigour, humbleness and devotion. In the last months of his life, suffering a painful disease, he showed his strength by letting his soul master himself, and resigned to the will of God.