SKETCH OF BR. GUSTAV NACHTIGAL. 691 



Light, then, is an inexhaustible source from which living beings 

 obtain energy under all forms and in the most unforeseen conditions ; 

 or, as Lavoisier has said, we might believe prophetically, considering 

 the time when he spoke : " Organization, feeling, spontaneous move- 

 ment, and life exist only at the surface of the earth, and in places ex- 

 posed to the light. We might say that the fable of the torch of Pro- 

 metheus was the expression of a philosophical truth that did not escape 

 the ancients. Without light, nature would be bereft of life, dead, in- 

 animate. A beneficent God in giving light has spread organization, 

 feeling, and thought over the surface of the earth." 



SKETCH OF DR. GUSTAV NACHTIGAL. 



THE name of Dr. Gustav Nachtigal is associated with some of the 

 most arduous achievements of African research, which were also 

 not of inferior importance ; and in the last year of his life he was 

 prominent, as the designated servant of his Government, in those 

 transactions which had for their object the establishment of German 

 colonies and influence at commanding positions in the " Dark Con- 

 tinent." 



Dr. Nachtigal was born on the 23d of February, 1834, at Eich- 

 stadt, near Stendal, in the former Prussian province of Altmark, 

 where his father was a clergyman. He lost his father at an early age, 

 and the burden of the support of himself and his little sister, as he 

 used afterward to relate with grateful admiration of her heroic devo- 

 tion, fell hard upon his poor widowed mother. Having received the 

 usual primary education and completed his course at the gymnasium, 

 he studied medicine at the schools in Berlin, Halle, Wiirzburg, and 

 Greifswald. At the last place he was a pupil of the famous pathol- 

 ogist Niemeyer, and contracted from him, as he afterward told a 

 friend, much of his enthusiasm for science. He received his doctor's 

 degree here in the fall of 1857, passed the state examination during the 

 ensuing winter, and was appointed under-physician to the thirtieth 

 infantry regiment, which was stationed at Cologne. In 1859, he was 

 promoted to be assistant-surgeon of the thirty-third regiment, also in 

 Cologne. Two years later, when he received his furlough from active 

 service, his superiors could say of him : " A thoroughly scientifically 

 taught physician, Nachtigal is full of energy, and shows great devo- 

 tion to his profession. His quiet self-possession, and his clear under- 

 standing, together with great tact in demeanor, attest that he is 

 peculiarly well fitted to the higher positions of the military medical 

 service." 



In 1862, having been attacked with a disease of the lungs, which 



