Gaubius en de medische chemie

Hieronymus David Gaub (1705-1780) was the son of a protestant cloth merchant in Heidelberg. Disliking a pietistic boarding school in Halle, Germany, he came to stay with a paternal uncle who was a physician in Amsterdam. Hieronymus studied medicine in Harderwijk and in Leiden, under the guidance of Herman Boerhaave (1668-1738). In 1731 he was appointed reader (and in 1734 professor) in chemistry at the Leiden medical faculty. After Boerhaave’s death he also taught medicine, but without access to hospital beds. Gaubius correctly envisaged that chemistry would become an important discipline in medicine, but was limited by the technical constraints of his time. In his textbook of general pathology (1758) he attributed disease to disturbances of not only fluids, but also solid parts, although symptoms remained the basis of his classification. The book would remain influential for several decades, until the advent of pathological anatomy.

Conflict of interest: none declared. Financial support: J.P. Gijselhart works part time for the Association of the Dutch Journal of Medicine (Vereniging Nederlands Tijdschrift voor Geneeskunde), Amsterdam.