Hostname: page-component-78c5997874-j824f Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-09T14:05:43.021Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

The Influence of Leyden on Botany in the Seventeenth and Eighteenth Centuries*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  05 January 2009

William T. Stearn
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Synopsis

The University of Leyden was founded in 1575 as the reward of the city's endurance of the Spanish siege in 1574. Its influence on botany in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries is part of its far-reaching influence during this period on medicine, to which botany was then ancillary. In this it was the successor of Montpellier and Padua. The first university founded after the Reformation to practise and maintain religious tolerance towards its students, Leyden became the great international university of Europe, drawing students from Scandinavia, Germany, Switzerland and France, from all parts of the British Isles and the British American colonies (roughly 4,000 English-speaking students between 1600 and 1750) and even from Barbados, Jamaica and Constantinople. It offered facilities for higher education then denied, for example, to dissenters in England or else not available, as in Scandinavia. Owing to this religious tolerance in an age of intolerance and also to the personal eminence of a succession of professors, its influence spread widely. Directly and indirectly, Leyden made its greatest contribution to botany and medicine through the work and personality of Herman Boerhaave (1668–1738) and led to the founding or restoration of botanic gardens at Edinburgh, Göttingen, Uppsala and Vienna. Beginning with Clusius, its influence upon botany may be traced through Hermann and Boerhaave to Haller, Linnaeus, Lettsom and others. No other university has a more sustained and continuous record of service to botany and medicine during these two centuries than Leyden. This paper also touches upon the history of other universities.

Type
Research Article
Information
The British Journal for the History of Science , Volume 1 , Issue 2 , December 1962 , pp. 137 - 158
Copyright
Copyright © British Society for the History of Science 1962

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

1 Burkill, I. H. in J. Bombay Nat. Hist. Soc., 1953, li, 847Google Scholar; Stearn, W. T. in Proc. Linnean Soc. London, 1958 clxix, 179.Google Scholar

2 Arber, A., Herbals, Cambridge, 1938, 2nd ed.Google Scholar

3 Reprinted in 1956 and also included in Huizinga, J., Verzamelde Werken, 1948, ii, 412–507.Google Scholar

4 Its extent is a matter of dispute; see Rabb, T. K., ‘The effects of the Thirty Years' War on the German economy’, J. Modern Hist., 1962, xxxiv, 40–51.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

5 McLachlan, H., English Education under the Test Acts, Manchester, 1931Google Scholar, dealing with the nonconformist academies founded from 1662 onwards to counter the evil effect of this and the earlier Act of Uniformity, contains many incidental references to the University of Leyden.

6 Cf. Abraham, J. J., Lettsom, his Life, Times, Friends and Descendants, London, 1933, p. 69.Google Scholar

7 Cf. Herdin, K. W., ‘Olof Rudbeck den äldres Hortus botanicus’, Svenska Linné-Sällsk. Årsskr., 1925, viii, 14–25Google Scholar; Sernander, R., ‘Linnacus och Rudbeckarnes Hortus botanicus’, Svenska Linné-Sällsk. Årsskr., 1931, xiv, 126–159Google Scholar; von Hofsten, N., ‘Olaus Rudbeck’, Swedish Men of Science, 1650–1950 (ed. S. Lindroth), 1952, pp. 33–41Google Scholar; Lindroth, S., ‘Harvey, Descartes and young Olaus Rudbeck’, J. Hist. Med. & Allied Sci., 1957, xii, 209–219CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Ekman, E., ‘Gothic patriotism and Olof Rudbeck’, J. Modern Hist., 1962, xxxiv, 52–63.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

8 See, for example, Guthrie, D. J., A History of Medicine, 2nd ed., London, 1959Google Scholar; King, L. S., Ed., The medical World of the eighteenth Century, Chicago, 1958Google Scholar; Poynter, F. N. L. and Keele, K. D., A short History of Medicine, Oxford, 1961Google Scholar; Sigerist, H. E., The great Doctors, London, 1933Google Scholar; Singer, C. J., A short History of Medicine, Oxford, 1928Google Scholar; Walker, K., The story of Medicine, London, 1954.Google Scholar

9 On this matter see Stearn, W. T., ‘Botanical gardens and botanical literature in the eighteenth century’ (pp. liv–lvii) in Cat. Bot. Books R. M. M. Hunt, 1961, ii(1), xli–cxl.Google Scholar

10 Science, Medicine and History; Essays … in Honour of Charles Singer, 2 vol. ed. Underwood, E. Ashworth, London, 1953, ii, 317–336.Google Scholar

11 Prefixed to Ray Society facsimile of Linnaeus, , Species Plantarum, vol. i.Google Scholar

12 Prefixed to Historiae Naturalis Classica facsimile of Linnaeus, Genera Plantarum, 5th ed.

13 See footnote 9.

14 Hirzel, L., Ed., Albrecht Hallers Tagebücher seiner Reisen nach Deutschland, Holland und England, 1723–1727, Leipzig, 1883Google Scholar; Hintzsche, E., Ed., Albrecht Hallers Tagebücher, u.s.w., St. Gallen, 1948Google Scholar; Lindeboom, G. A., Ed., Haller in Holland, het Dagboek von Albrecht von Haller van zijn Verblijf Holland, Delft, 1958Google Scholar; cf. also Sigerist, H. E., Ed., ‘Albrecht von Hallers Briefe an Johannes Gesner’, Abhandl. Königl. Ges. Wiss. Göttingen, Math.-Phys. Kl., N.F., 1923, ii, no. 2.Google Scholar Regarding Haller's botanical collection in Göttingen and Paris, see Zoller, H. in Nachr. Akad. Wiss. Göttingen, Math.-Phys. Kl., 1958, pp. 217–252Google Scholar, and Bull. Mus. Nat. Hist. Nat. Paris, 1958, ii (30), 305–312.Google Scholar

15 For the history of the Royal Botanic Garden, Edinburgh, see Cowan, J. M. in Notes R. Bot. Card. Edinburgh, 1933–1935, xix, 1–134.Google Scholar

16 Appended to Ray Society facsimile of Linnaeus, , Species Plantarum, vol. ii.Google Scholar

17 Cf. Vita Caroli Linnaei, Carl von Linné's Självbiografier, 1957, p. 109.Google Scholar

18 See footnote 5.

19 Abraham, J. J. in Science, Medicine and History (v. footnote 10), ii, 173.Google Scholar

20 Cf. Raistrick, A., Quakers in Science and Industry … during the 17th and 18th Centuries, London, 1950.Google Scholar