CHAPTER X 



EXPERIMENTAL AND SPECULATIVE BIOLOGY IN THE 

 EIGHTEENTH CENTURY 



BESIDES THESE MONOGRAPHisTs, who Were highly regarded in their own 

 day and are still well worth reading even nowadays, there lived dur- 

 ing the eighteenth century many scientists whose works embraced 

 fields of research of wide extent in regard to both the material investigated 

 and the problems dealt with. In particular, experimental biology and theo- 

 retical questions in connexion therewith were developed on a considerable 

 scale during this period by scientists who have merited the attention both of 

 their own age and of posterity. Foremost among these should be mentioned 

 Haller, a great man in his own age and a scientist for all time, famous as 

 a botanist, anatomist, physiologist, statesman, and poet. 



Albrecht von Haller was born at Berne in 1707. His father was a 

 wealthy and highly reputed lawyer, who gave his son a thorough education, 

 at first in his own home with a private tutor, then at the University of Tub- 

 ingen, and finally at Leyden under Boerhaave. Young Albrecht was an infant 

 prodigy; at the age of ten he had a thorough knowledge of Greek and 

 Hebrew, at fifteen he had written an epic poem and some tragedies, at nine- 

 teen he was a doctor of medicine. It was obvious that a young man thus 

 equipped would in time become something quite out of the ordinary; un- 

 fortunately, as so often happens, none of the successes that he actually at- 

 tained fully reached the height of his dreams. Having taken his degree, 

 Haller studied for a time in Paris, afterwards settling down in Berne as a 

 physician. He there became universally known as a botanist and poet and in 

 1736 was appointed a professor of medicine at the then newly-founded 

 University of Gottingen, where he did splendid work; he laid out a botanical 

 garden and built an anatomical theatre, founded a still existing and much 

 thought-of scientific society, and besides found time for scientific author- 

 ship of an extraordinarily many-sided character. But he never won content- 

 ment; he was troubled with melancholy and a longing for his native country, 

 and finally he resigned his professorship and returned home to Berne (in 

 1753). There he was elected to the municipal council and made a name as 

 a distinguished official; his services were utilized as a diplomat and he per- 

 formed his duties in that capacity with honour. Meanwhile he continued 

 his scientific writing with undiminished zeal; his productivity was nothing 



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