SKETCH OF A. F. J. PLATEAU. 695 



experiment his eyes were strongly affected, bnt he did not sus- 

 pect that he had done them a permanent injury. This experi- 

 ment undoubtedly laid the foundations of that disease which 

 twelve years later brought on total blindness. 



After being forced to resign his work, in 1830, he again re- 

 sumed it at Brussels. In 1835 Quetelet urged Plateau to apply 

 for the professorship of experimental science in the University of 

 Ghent. The young savant refused at first to offer himself as 

 candidate for a position in the first institution in his native land, 

 pleading youth and inexperience; but later his scruples were 

 overcome, and he received the appointment to the chair. 



As soon as he began his work in Ghent, he found the collec- 

 tions of the university very poor and meager. He gave himself 

 at once to the work of remedying this deficiency. In order to 

 inform himself, he visited and examined minutely the most cele- 

 brated collections in England, France, and Germany. He ad- 

 dressed the Government and the inspector of the university, and 

 pleaded his case so well that in the end though it was only 

 after long and wearisome labor he succeeded in securing one 

 of the finest physical cabinets in existence to the University of 

 Ghent. 



In 1840 Plateau married Mile. Clavareau, daughter of a director 

 of tax-collections. She was always a devoted wife and true help- 

 mate to him. Outliving him, she was able to comfort, sustain, 

 and help him when darkness settled over his life. In 1841 his 

 son Felix, now Professor of Zoology and Comparative Anatomy 

 in the University of Ghent, was born. During the same year the 

 disease which ended in total blindness made itself felt. For two 

 years he submitted to the most painful treatment in hopes of 

 saving his eye-sight. The trouble which had attacked the right 

 eye extended to the left. During these long months neither his 

 terrible affliction nor his excruciating suffering ever drew a word 

 of complaint from his lips. 



The courage which showed itself in this heroic endurance was 

 far from being merely passive. Nothing daunted by what, in a 

 lesser man, would have ended his life's work, Plateau never lost 

 courage. The future must have looked very dark even to his 

 courageous spirit, but he gave no token of failure. Happily, all 

 material anxieties were removed by the action of his countrymen. 

 He was appointed "professeur ordinaire," and a little later a 

 royal order, countersigned by M. Rogier, assured him of the en- 

 joyment of the entire salary and emoluments of his position. A 

 noble recognition of the man and of his services a recognition 

 fully justified by forty years of fruitful work, and by a series of 

 discoveries "which have made Belgian science illustrious through- 

 out the entire world." 



