A Brill Calendar: May 7

Van Swieten: A Worthy Successor

Few objections could be raised on the Board of Leyden University in 1738 against Gerard van Swieten succeeding the Patriarch of European medicine, Herman Boerhaave (1668 – 1738).

Van Swieten, (Leyden, May 7, 1700) had stood in for the Grand Old Man increasingly frequently during the final decade of Boerhaave’s life. However, one objection proved to be decisive for Leyden and Holland, both staunchly Calvinist: Van Swieten was Roman-Catholic. His education in medical sciences had begun at Louvain University in the Popish South of the Low Countries, before he became Boerhaave’s assistant. Van Swieten stoically put up with seeing his career in 1738 thwarted for a while; until a missive reached him from the Habsburg Imperial Palace in Vienna, soliciting his interest to become personal physician to Her Imperial Highness, Maria Theresia (1717 – 1780).

Boerhaave’s best pupil left the city of his birth in 1745, having already started a classic work, ‘Commentarii in H. Boerhavii aphorismos de cognoscendis et curandis morbis’ (5 Vols., 1742 – 1772).

It is seldom that appointing a foreigner worked such wonders, often beyond the job-description proper. Van Swieten also became Director of the Imperial Library, and President of the Medical Faculty of the ancient Viennese University, while reorganizing and revitalizing its curriculum. In addition he saw to it that the Austrian State could start to inspect & correct medical professionals properly. An ironic consequence of the broad ranging activities of this Roman-Catholic Hollander was that they significantly weakened the grip of the Jesuit religious order on Maria Theresia’s subjects.

The Imperial Patient outlived her Doctor & Friend; van Swieten died on June 18 1772 at Schönbrunn. The same holds true for another personal Viennese friend, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (1756 – 1791). Once perceived, the connectedness of European cultures is astounding.