5 68 



POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



given three years ago by Virchow in 

 London. The issues for July and Au- 

 gust of last year contain a paper by 

 him on the ' Peopling of the Philip- 

 pines,' translated from the Proceedings 

 of the Prussian Academy of Sciences. 

 A recent portrait of Virchow is given 

 above as a frontispiece. An earlier 

 portrait and an account of his life will 

 be found in the number of The Popu- 

 lar Science Monthly for October, 

 1882. 



SCIENTIFIC EMINENCE. 



The death of Virchow, following the 

 deaths of Pasteur, Helmholtz and 

 Darwin, seems to leave the world with- 

 out men of science as great as those it 

 has lost. Great Britain, in the estab- 

 lishment of its new order of merit, has 

 selected Lord Kelvin, Lord Lister, Lord 

 Rayleigh and Sir William Huggins as 

 the four students of science to be hon- 

 ored. In addition to Mr. Herbert 

 Spencer, whose claims for recognition 

 are somewhat different, Sir Joseph 

 Hooker and Sir William Stokes may 

 be placed in this group. When, on the 

 occasion of Virchow's eightieth birth- 

 day last year, Lord Lister brought 

 greetings from Great Britain, he was 

 the only man whose work could be 

 placed beside Virchow's; but while his 

 method of antiseptic treatment in sur- 

 gery has been one of the greatest ad- 

 vances in medicine, it is in some re- 

 spects an isolated discovery, and can 

 scarcely claim equality with the im- 

 mense work accomplished by Virchow 

 and Pasteur. Lord Kelvin is the only 

 living physicist who might be ranked 

 with Helmholtz. Darwin has no peer. 



Although Germany has a larger 

 number of scientific workers than 

 Great Britain, it is not certain that it 

 now has more men of exceptional emi- 

 nence. Professor Haeckel has a world- 

 wide reputation, but would perhaps be 

 ranked less highly by the expert than 

 by the general public. Professor Ront- 

 gen's name is known everywhere for 

 one striking discovery, as are also Pro- 



fessor Weismann's for a theory around 

 which much discussion has collected, 

 and Dr. Koch's, less for his real work 

 than for sensational expectations. But 

 it may be doubted whether tne leading 

 German men of science are known to 

 the general public or even to those in 

 other departments of science. They 

 would include Klein in mathematics, 

 Struve in astronomy, Boltzmann in 

 physics, Ostwald in chemistry, Suess 

 in geology, Koelliker and Gegenbaur 

 in anatomy, Pfliiger in physiology, 

 Strasburger in botany and Wundt in 

 psychology. These, and others who 

 might be named with equal justice, 

 form an important group, and several 

 of them are still in the prime of ljfe. 

 It is doubtful, however, whether any 

 of them will attain the eminence of 

 Helmholtz and Virchow. 



A similar list for France would in- 

 clude the names of Hermite and Poin- 

 care in mathematics, Loewy in as- 

 tronomy, Cornu in physics, Berthelot 

 and Moissan in chemistry, Gaudry in 

 geology and van Tieghem in botany. 

 No other European nation ranks with 

 Great Britain, Germany and France. 

 Russia has Mendeleef in chemistry, 

 Kovalevskij in zoology and Karpinskij 

 in geology; Italy has Cremona in 

 mathematics, Righi in physics and 

 Mosso in physiology; and there are of 

 course many other notable men in 

 these and in other countries. 



It is obviously difficult to compare 

 our own eminent men with those of 

 other nations. Among those who have 

 an international reputation are New- 

 comb, Hall and Hill in astronomy, 

 Willard Gibbs in theoretical physics, 

 Michelson in experimental physics, 

 Wolcott Gibbs in chemistry, Gil- 

 bert in geology, Agassiz in zoology, 

 Farlow in botany, Welch in pathology 

 and James in psychology. 



Eminence is relative, and as scien- 

 tific work becomes more widespread 

 and special it may be that men of 

 equal ability will no longer become as 

 eminent as might have been the case 



