THE ALUMNI JOURNAL. 



77 





edge in London, began, in 1853, his 

 career as a practical apotheker and part 

 proprietor of a pharmacy in the small 

 town of Bnrgdorf, near Berne, There 

 he prosecuted his occupation until i860, 

 together with incidental scientific and 

 literary studies, and then took the posi- 

 tion of manager of the State pharmacy 

 in the town of Berne, to which place he 

 transferred his residence. He occupied 

 this position — with which several other 

 officials (for instance, the members of the 

 Sanitary College and the Pharmaceutical 

 Examiners), were connected, and at the 

 same time that of forensic chemist to the 

 Canton of Berne, until 1873. 



A year after taking this new position 

 in Berne he began to give public lectures 

 on pharmaceutical subjects, especially 

 pharmacognosy, as tutor at the Univer- 

 sity of Berne, and in 1870 he was elected 

 extraordinary professor in recognition of 

 his academic activity. 



In 1873 he accepted the very compli- 

 mentary invitation to take the professor- 

 ship of pharmacy and directorship of the 

 pharmaceutical institute at the newly es- 

 tablished University of Strasburg, where 

 he continued for nearly twenty years as 

 an ornament of its mathematical and 

 natural science faculty, and where his 

 death is now lamented as a great loss. 

 With the greatest success and indefati- 

 gable loyalty he continued his labors as 

 teacher, investigator and author until 

 1892, when, at the age of sixty-four, he 

 resigned, with the object of spending the 

 evening of his life in the undisturbed 

 quiet of literary work in the chief town 

 of his native canton, after having devoted 

 the best years of his life to the academic 

 representation and promotion of his call- 

 ing. 



At the invitation of a friend he visited 

 New York during this year, returning 

 from there with many pleasant and in- 

 structive recollections at the commence- 



ment of October. Very soon afterwards 

 indications of a complaint, which had no 

 doubt long been latent, manifested them- 

 selves and in a very short time termi- 

 nated his life. 



Fliickiger's scientific achievements and 

 merits cannot of course be sufficiently ac- 

 knowledged in a short sketch of his life, 

 but only mentioned in a cursory manner. 

 Indefatigable industry in scientific in- 

 vestigations was a characteristic of his 

 work, assisted as it was by remarkable 

 powers of memory and an astonishing 

 acquaintance with all departments of 

 literature relating to pharmaceutical and 

 natural science. This is the key to an 

 almost astonishing many-sidedness which 

 enabled him without the least danger of 

 superficiality to carry out important 

 work in all departments of his calling 

 and in almost equal degree to cultivate 

 pharmacognosy, pharmaceutical chemis- 

 try and the history of chemistry and of 

 drugs, with such success that, independ- 

 ently of his larger writings, upwards of 

 300 memoirs have been contributed by 

 him to pharmaceutical literature on those 

 subjects. 



For a powerful stimulus in promoting 

 his scientific calling he was, no doubt, 

 indebted to his intimate participation in 

 the construction of the first Pharmaco- 

 poeia Helvetica while residing at Burg- 

 dorf. This he had to carry out as Presi- 

 dent of the Swiss Apotheker- Verein from 

 1857 to 1866. He was also engaged as 

 chief editor of the second edition of the 

 Pharmacopoeia Helvetica, 1872. The 

 preliminary work, experiments, observa- 

 tions and literary studies necessary for 

 this purpose may be regarded as the 

 basis of his " I^ehrbuch der Pharmakog- 

 nosie des Pfianzenreiches," carried out 

 in Berne, the first edition of which was 

 published in 1867 by Gaertner, at Ber- 

 lin, and acquired for him at once a uni- 

 versal reputation and well earned recog- 



