Mechanicisme contra vitalisme: de school van Herman Boerhaave en de beginselen van het leven

Abstract

Mechanism versus Vitalism: the school of Herman Boerhaave and the principles of lifeHerman Boerhaave strongly opposed the idea of any direct influence of immaterial character upon the structures of the human body. He kept his concepts strictly mechanistic, stating that life was circulation of the humours through the vessels, which he considered to be the primary functional elements. He arranged the different parts of the body in a closed hierarchical system. For Boerhaave. the Newtonian laws of gravity and attraction were the basic principles of life/matter relations. His pupils never abandoned the idea of the mechanism, they opposed the vitalislic concept of the body as an organism, which was the main principle of the school of Montpellier.