Theodorus van de Graeff

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Herman Boerhaave set out from Leiden for Harderwijk on 11 July 1693, in order to take his medical degree. He probably travelled by way of Amsterdam, crossing the Zuiderzee to Harderwijk. On 12 July his name was introduced into the 'Album Studiosorum Academiae Gelro-Zutphanicae'. Before he obtained permission to defend his thesis, he was examined on 13 July on the whole of medicine, and on the next day he had to discuss a case of apoplexy and to explain an aphorism of Hippocrates. On 15 July Boerhaave defended a thesis entitled "De Utilitate explorandorum in aegris excrementorum ut signorum", that is 'on the utility of examination of the excreta of patients as signs of disease', under the Praesidium of Theodorus van de Graeff. After graduating in this way Boerhaave returned from Harderwijk to Leiden, probably on the next day.

There has been some speculation of why Boerhaave chose to graduate this way in Harderwijk. While Boerhaave studied medicine mostly on his own, it is known that he did attend anatomy classes in Leiden, particulary from Anton Nuck (1650-92) and Charles Drelincourt (1633-97). So why didn't he choose Drelincourt, Paul Hermann (1646-1695), or Archibald Pitcairne (who was in Leiden between April 1692 and the summer of 1693) for his thesis advisor? The most likely explanation was that Boerhaave was financially strapped, and couldn't afford to matriculate at the University of Leiden. Another possible reason may have been that Descartes and Sylvius were out of favor in Leiden at that time, and he could have faced a hostile thesis defense there.
Yet another issue may be that at the time Boerhaave defended his thesis in Harderwijk he may not have intended to pursue a career in medicine, but to follow in the footsteps of his father and become a pastor instead; i.e. his medical dissertation was little more than a diversion. It is being told that while he was returning to Leiden from Harderwijk he became involved a discussion with fellow passenger on the tow-boat from Amsterdam to Leiden, with the result that his orthodoxy was being questioned. That closed for him the door to study theology and become a pastor, and from there on he dedicated himself to medicine instead


Theodorus van de Graeff (d. 1701) had taken his degree in 1676 at Leiden with a thesis on Descartes (Disputatio medica inauguralis de catalepsi). He had been a professor at Duisburg in Germany for a short time, but there he had to discontinue his lectures on Descartes. Since October 1692 he had been in Harderwijk. Van de Graeff did not publish any medical work.
( http://books.google.com/books?id=Q689AAAAIAAJ&pg=PA41&lpg=PA41 )

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