A debilidade dos corpos: um caso clínico de caquexia no Hospital de Santa Cecília em Leiden, sob supervisão de Herman Boerhaave (1737)

Luis Filipe Maiolini

doi:10.53727/rbhc.v18i1.1103

Authors

Luis Filipe Maiolini Universidade Federal de Ouro Preto https://orcid.org/0000-0002-5216-5929

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.53727/rbhc.v18i1.1103

Keywords:

Herman Boerhaave, Clinical Instruction, Leiden University, Enlightenment

Abstract

This article examines the clinical-hospital practice of Herman Boerhaave (1668–1738), a professor of medicine at the University of Leiden, through the analysis of a case of cachexia. The objective is to investigate the teaching of medical clinic in the university context of the Enlightenment, detailing the methods, practices, and concepts employed by Boerhaave in his lectures. Based on a Clinical Lecture, we explore an episode that took place between September and November 1737, when the professor and his students followed the pathological progression of a patient at St. Cecilia Hospital. This specific case allows for a deeper understanding of clinical teaching at the time, highlighting how Boerhaave reconciled the principles of mechanical physics with the Hippocratic approach in diagnosing and treating patients. Furthermore, we discuss the 18th-century medical conception of cachexia, a disease characterized by severe physical deterioration, often associated with infections or nutritional deficiencies. The analysis of sources reveals the modus operandi of Boerhaave’s clinical teaching, emphasizing its articulation between mechanistic epistemology and the direct empirical observation of patients.

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