largely, with a quick running stream out of a great vessel, and a large orifice, keeping his body quiet and leaning backwards, enforcing his breathing all the while with coughing or panting, fomenting the side at the same time, and gently rubbing it; which bleeding ought to be continued till the pain seems to abate pretty considerably, unless a fainting fit forces you to leave off sooner; at whose approach the vein must immediately be stopped. Bleeding ought to be repeated according as these symptoms do return upon whose account it was done the first time; and when that skin doth not any longer appear upon the surface of the blood, it is time to forbear more bleeding.
From the beginning ought to be used fomentations, bathings, warm streams, liniments, plaisters, and the like; which may be of use as they loosen, resolve, mitigate, and avert. . . .
As only extracts of considerable length would suffice to
give our readers a satisfactory idea of the attractive manner
in which Boerhaave deals with the subject of chemistry, I
prefer to omit them altogether, and to recommend to those
who are specially interested in this branch of science, that
they consult Peter Shaw's excellent English translation of
the "Elementa Chemiae."
Albert von Haller, the celebrated Swiss physiologist and historian of medical literature, speaks of Boerhaave as "my beloved preceptor, a man of refined taste and a speaker or lecturer so logical and charming that one more gifted can hardly be imagined."
