Every medical student learns about Factor V Leiden, the inherited mutation of coagulation Factor V (for the boffins, at exon 10 of chromosome 1) that was discovered in this town in 1994 and which substantially increases the risk of spontaneous venous thromboembolism – a little problem if you are a carrier but a big problem if you are homozygous. Yes, there’s something about eponyms that make them stick. But, medically, Leiden is rightly famous for much more than this. For starters, in the early 18th century it was the home of one of the most celebrated and enlightened physicians in Europe: Herman Boerhaave, whose legacy rests on being one of the first to study the true pathophysiologic basis of common symptoms, and also for generally modernising the discipline that we know today as medical education. Yes, there is also Boerhaave syndrome (spontaneous rupture of the oesophagus) but that is just another eponymous disease – and a rare one at that. In Pieterskerk you can pay your respects at Herman’s tomb, as well as trample over those of a number of his lesser-known medical contemporaries. And while you are wandering about the cold Gothic stonework you can tip your hat to Gerrit Dou, creator of a number of wonderful Golden Age paintings featuring family physicians. The paintings themselves are scattered around European museums – there is even one in Christchurch, New Zealand.
Long deconsecrated as a house of God, Pieterskerk benefits from your admission fee by virtue of it helping to keep the place warm! Around the corner from Pieterskerk is Kamerlingh Onnes Laboratory where, in 1903, Willem Einthoven built the first electrocardiograph. Elsewhere, near the town centre, you can visit the impressive Boerhaave Museum (portraying the history of medicine as well as his life), and also a statue of the great man on Rijnsburgerweg over near Leiden University Medical Center. In the museum there is a portrait of Boerhaave by Rembrandt pupil Aert de Gelder. You can get to Leiden from Amsterdam in under an hour by train – and if you go in spring you will pass by glorious fields of tulips on the way.
Date visited: 12 April 2019
Image sources: Pieterskerk – Cultural Heritage Agency, Netherlands; other images – author
History of Medicine Traveller 