ACADEMY OF SCIENCES.] BIOGRAPHY. 185 



ological education as possible * * *. Dr. Wyman's letter, which I received a few weeks ago, 

 contained very strong advice for me to study pure science. He seemed to think that some- 

 thing was certain to turn up." In the light of later events a few lines from a letter to his mother 

 at this period are interesting: " I have been feeling very happy at the prospect of devoting my 

 whole time to scientific pursuits. I have been building all sorts of laboratories and medical 

 schools in the air. In this labor I have been materially assisted by Coll. Warren (John Collins 

 Warren), who is quite convinced that something ought to be done to raise the standard of scien- 

 tific education in our community. I mean, of course, particularly medical science." 



In March, 1869, he met the German physiologist, Kuhne, who, on request, laid out a career 

 of physiological study, including a few months with Max Schultze, a year with Carl Ludwig in 

 Leipzig, some time with Virchow in Berlin, and a final period with Helmholtz. The plan was 

 an attractive one and Bowditch decided at once to undertake at least the first part of it. 



PHYSIOLOGICAL STUDY IN LEIPZIG MARRIAGE. 



On May 9, 1869, he arrived at Bonn and there remained until midsummer studying micro- 

 scopic anatomy under Schultze and Rindfleisch. In September he settled at Leipzig and at 

 once entered into the activities of the physiological laboratory of Prof. Carl Ludwig. It was 

 without doubt the most stimulating and interesting center of biological research in the world 

 at that time. Ludwig himself was an ingenious and fertile investigator in a wide range of 

 problems, and had a most attractive personality. Men drawn to him at first by his dis- 

 coveries were held by the beauty and*force of Ms character and became loyal friends and fol- 

 lowers. Students gathered about him from all parts of the world. There Bowditch met Lauder 

 Brunton of Scotland, Ray Lankester of England, Mosso of Italy, Kronecker of Germany, Usti- 

 mowitsch of Russia — all of whom became close friends. A club made up of this group dined 

 together daily and talked over their laboratory experiences and other matters of interest. Lud- 

 wig was a constant delight to them. He had recently invented the kymograph for the registra- 

 tion of records of physiological processes on a moving surface. The time and the period of elec- 

 trical stimulation were marked on the surface by hand. Young Bowditch invented a means of 

 doing this automatically. In a letter written on November 7, 1869, he told of this event. " Prof. 

 Ludwig is a veiy amiable and agreeable man. He must be between fifty and sixty years old, 

 but he retains his youthful enthusiasm and a remarkable faculty of finding pleasure and amuse- 

 ment in trifling matters. I arranged a little apparatus yesterday attached to a rhetronorne for 

 the purpose of marking time on a revolving cylinder covered with smoked paper (an instrument 

 much used in various physiological experiments), and it was real fun to see how delighted the 

 professor was with it. " 



In May, 1869, Charles W. Eliot was elected president of Harvard University. In December 

 he proposed that Bowditch return to the United States and deliver a course of university lec- 

 tures on physiology during the second term of 1870-71. This Bowditch declined to do, because 

 it would require him to give up the last and most valuable six months of his proposed period of 

 study in Germany. A letter from his uncle, Henry I. Bowditch, a few weeks later strongly 

 urged him not to be " wheedled into coming home " — a supporting opinion which he much appre- 

 ciated. 



With the exception of time spent with members of his family on trips to Italy in March and 

 April and to England in July, Bowditch continued at work in the Leipzig Laboratory, finding " the 

 exhaustive way in which questions are treated by the German investigators " " verj T satisfactory " 

 and contrasting "very strongly with the French method." In November, 1870, he went to 

 Munich for a month to listen to a course of lectures by Prof. Carl Voit on nutrition and metabo- 

 lism — "very interesting and important, " as he wrote. On returning to Leipzig he began pur- 

 chasing apparatus for use in his own laboratory when he should be established in Boston or 

 Cambridge again. 



In April, 1871, President Eliot offered him the position of assistant professor of physiology 

 at the Harvard Medical School and invited him on his return home " to take part in the good 

 59490°— 24 13 



