This article provides an overview of the life and work of the Dutchman Gerard van Swieten respectively at Leyden and Vienna. He is still well known as the founder of the first Vienna medical school and reformer of the Viennese medical faculty. During the eighteenth century his five volumes containing Commentaries upon the aphorisms of Herman Boerhaave were considered to be the best medical reference work. In his organizational work Van Swieten can be characterized as a medical manager avant la lettre and at the same time as a (brilliant) epigone of his master Boerhaave and the Leyden clinic. In his writings too he closely followed the ideas and papers of Boerhaave and others, and also here he was an epigone, be it a great one. His Commentaria are at the present time still valuable to inform us about the state of the art in eighteenth century medicine. These books really deserve a timely overall study.