466 FRANCLSCUS CORNELIUS DONDERS. 



Before he was twenty-two years of age, Donders was sent as 

 junior military surgeon to the garrison at Vlissingen. Here, and 

 especially at The Hague, the seat of government, where he was sta- 

 tioned a year later, he had the advantage of polite society, and of 

 contact with distinguished men, — with opportunities for culture in 

 art and literature, as well as in science and general and professional 

 knowledge. He amply profited by these advantages, and perfected 

 his acquaintance with French, English, and German, so that he 

 wrote and spoke these as if they had been his native tongue ; acquir- 

 ing also a grace and urbanity of manner for which he was distin- 

 guished in all his social and professional life. The attention of his 

 superiors being attracted by some of his published scientific papers, he 

 was sent again to Utrecht, in 1842, to reorganize the Military Medical 

 School ; and was appointed Professor of Anatomy and of Physiology 

 at the institution where so recently he had been a pupil. 



Here began Donders's real scientific life. Convinced that book 

 knowledge, especially in the natural sciences, has little value in con- 

 tributing to further advancement, unless completed by careful personal 

 experimental investigation, he accepted the offered position without a 

 moment's hesitation, although he thus gave up the pleasures and 

 advantages of the capital, and accepted a smaller income : " For I 

 felt," he says, " that to teach was my vocation." 



Thus he established himself for life, as it proved, in a small city 

 of Holland. Quickened into still greater activity by the labors he 

 assumed, and animated by the example of Professor Mulder, — whose 

 laboratory became, as Donders expressed it, the cradle of physiologi- 

 cal chemistry, — and in co-operation with his venerated teacher, Pro- 

 fessor Schroeder, he devoted himself with ardor to explorations in 

 every part of anatomy and physiology, verifying each observation with 

 his own eyes, and accepting nothing as proved which his own experi- 

 ence had not confirmed; but showing marvellous lucidity in directing 

 researches, in forming conclusions, and in appreciating the values of 

 results gained and the means of utilizing them. " There is no domain 

 in the vast science of Physiology," says Landolt, " in which Donders 

 did not leave traces of his labors. The vitality of tissues, the circula- 

 tion of the blood, digestion, secretions, movements, language, the 

 organs of sense, the secrets of the nervous system, have all in turn 

 been investigated by this indefatigable explorer." He founded, with 

 Ellermann and Jansen, the " Nederlandsch Lancet," that they might 

 have an organ for the announcement of new discoveries ; and he 

 largely augmented his own labors by frequent contributions to it* 



