title: Tradition as the genealogy of truth Hippocrates and Boerhaave between assimilation, variation and deviation.
abstract: It is a matter of fact that rarely in the history of modern medicine has a physician gained such immediate and universal fame, and rarely has his contribution to medical knowledge and teaching been so promptly and almost unanimously recognized as a fundamental and, so to speak, a foundational one, as in the case of Boerhaave. In fact, the contribution he gave to provide medicine with a 'scientific' framework, and medical teaching with solid methodological bases, proved decisive. Otherwise, his appraisal of the Ancients (and especially of Hippocrates) and his will to refer to Hippocrates as a model for medical teaching were proverbial. Taking the corpus of his orations as a point of reference, I will thus try to elucidate 1) Boerhaave's main focus and theoretical goals; 2) the argumentative and methodological strategies he adopted in order to achieve them; 3) the position that the key-concept of 'tradition', the figure of Hippocrates, and the notion of 'Hippocratism' hold within these strategies.
authors.affiliation: Department of Classical Philology of the Humboldt University of Berlin.
authors.forename: Roberto
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Lo Presti
mesh_terms: D004501:Education, Medical / Q000266:history*; D049670:History, 17th Century; D049671:History, 18th Century; D006801:Humans; D009426:Netherlands; D010820:Physicians / Q000266:history*; D013663:Teaching / Q000266:history; D013782:Textbooks as Topic / Q000266:history