FRANCISCUS CORNELIUS DONDERS. 469 



ments for the Netherlands Hospital for Diseases of the Eyes, which, 



with the co-operation of Snellen, he established and conducted at 

 Utrecht; — thus entering a field where the large opportunities for 

 direct and skilled personal service towards his suffering fellow men 

 afforded a new satisfaction to his sympathetic nature. The mean- 

 thus offered for continuing scientific observation wee also most 

 advantageous, and afforded ample fruition in the hands of such a 

 man, — who loved accurate research, not only for its own sake, but 

 for the delight of imparting and applying the knowledge thus gained 

 for the relief of humanity. 



So great a man cannot be wholly unconscious of his worth; hut 

 Donders's modesty was sometimes almost diifidence. We rejoice that 

 in his later years he was allowed the gratification of knowing that he 

 had been eminently useful, not only by his own labors, which had 

 advanced Ophthalmology a century, but hugely also by rendering 

 applicable the results of the labors of others. The invention of Von 

 Helmholtz, which indeed opened a new world to Ophthalmology, 

 might have rested in the laboratory of the renowned physicist who 

 devised it, but perhaps little suspected its practical value, as a mere 

 bit of apparatus for experiment, because he lacked opportunities for 

 its clinical use. Moreover, as an apostle of Ophthalmology, Don- 

 ders became the exemplar and teacher of disciples from near and far 

 countries. 



When, in 1862, upon the decease of Schroeder, the Professorship 

 of Physiology at the University was tendered to Bonders, he once 

 more obtained subscriptions of large sums for the building and equip- 

 ment of a new physiological laboratory, so supplied with all modern 

 means of research that it should be a model institution. But his 

 enormous labors in so many departments made it imperative that he 

 should divide his responsibilities with worthy assistants, — Snellen 

 assuming the management of the Ophthalmic Hospital, and Engle 

 mann the charge of the laboratory and of the courses in Microscopic 

 Anatomy and Physiological Chemistry, — Donders reserving to him- 

 self the instruction in General Physiology and Physiological Optics, 

 and the time for original investigations. At tin- F< itsitzung der 

 Ophthalmologischen Gesellschaft, in 1880, in tin- greal ball of the 

 University of Heidelberg, for the presentation to Von Helmholtz of 

 the Orach- Medal, which, according to the statutes of its founder, 

 should he given once in ten years to him of any nationality who had 

 done most for the promotion of Ophthalmology, Donders, a- the mosl 

 distinguished member of the society, was selected as the orator. After 



