SKETCH OF ROBERT KOCH. 259 



embarrassed to explain how the toad could live in its singular 

 prison and how it became shut up there. The strangest ideas 

 have been expressed on this point. The ridiculous hypothesis has 

 even been proposed of an imperceptible toad-germ that was de- 

 veloped in the interior of the stone. The fact of the survival of 

 the toad, despite the impenetrability of the stone, becomes less 

 doubtful when we recollect the similar experiments on animals 

 inclosed in plaster, which we have mentioned above. But the 

 problem of the toad's introduction into the stone still remains un- 

 solved. 



M. Charles Richet had occasion to study this question some 

 months ago, and came to the conclusion that the fact was real, 

 observing that even if, in the actual condition of science, certain 

 phenomena were still inexplicable, we were not warranted in de- 

 nying their existence, for new discoveries might at any time fur- 

 nish an explanation of them. " The true may sometimes not be 

 probable." But science takes accounting of the truth, not of the 

 probability. 



Hibernating mammalia are capable of putting on all the 

 appearance of death. The marmot, during its lethargic sleep, is 

 cold, the temperature of its body being hardly 1 C. above that 

 without. It respires only three times a minute ; and the beatings 

 of the heart, which rise to ninety a minute in the active life of the 

 animal, fall to ten in a minute. Bats, during the cold season, 

 hang like dead bodies. One may take them in his hands, press 

 them, and throw them into the air, without their manifesting any 

 sign of feeling. Translated for the Popular Science Monthly from 

 La Monde de la Science et de V Industrie. 



SKETCH OF ROBERT KOCH. 



ONE of the most eminent of the colaborers of Pasteur in the 

 investigation of the relations of microorganisms to disease- 

 infection, and one whose labors have been most fully appreciated 

 by intelligent men, is Dr. Robert Koch, of Berlin. He was born at 

 Clausthal on the 11th of December, 1843, the son of a high officer 

 in the department of mines. He attended the gymnasium in his 

 native town, and afterward from 1862 to 1866 studied medicine 

 at Gottingen. He became an assistant in the Allgemeine Krank- 

 enhaus, or General Hospital, at Hamburg ; began the practice of 

 medicine in 1866 at Langenhagen in Hanover ; then settled at 

 Racknitz, in Posen. From 1872 till 1880 he was physihas or dis- 

 trict physician at Wallstein, in the district of Bomst. He en- 

 gaged in studies of bacteriological diseases, including wound- 



