His reputation now began to bear some proportion to his merit, and
extended itself to distant universities; so that, in 1703, the
professorship of physick being vacant at Groningen, he was invited
thither; but he refused to leave Leyden, and chose to continue his
present course of life.
This invitation and refusal being related to the governours of the
university of Leyden, they had so grateful a sense of his regard for
them, that they immediately voted an honorary increase of his salary,
and promised him the first professorship that should be vacant.
On this occasion he pronounced an oration upon the use of mechanicks
in the science of physick, in which he endeavoured to recommend a
rational and mathematical inquiry into the causes of diseases, and the
structure of bodies; and to show the follies and weaknesses of the
jargon introduced by Paracelsus, Helmont, and other chymical
enthusiasts, who have obtruded upon the world the most airy dreams,
and, instead of enlightening their readers with explications of
nature, have darkened the plainest appearances, and bewildered mankind
in errour and obscurity.
Boerhaave had now for nine years read physical lectures, but without
the title or dignity of a professor, when, by the death of professor
Hotten, the professorship of physick and botany fell to him of course.
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