CHAPTER VII 



LINN^US AND HIS PUPILS 



Linnaus's life and ivork 



NILS Ingemarsson was a peasant lad from Sunnerbo, in the province 

 of Smaland in Sweden, who was destined for the priesthood. When at 

 school, not having previously had any family name, as was the case 

 with the country people in general in Sweden, he adopted the name of Lin- 

 nasus, after a mighty linden-tree growing near his home, which was regarded 

 by the country folk as a sort of sacred tree. After a long period of study at 

 Lund University — frequently interrupted, owing to his poverty — he was 

 ordained priest in 1704 at the age of thirty, and two years later he was ap- 

 pointed curate at Rashult. At the same time he married Christina Brodersonia, 

 daughter of the Vicar of Stenbrohult. Some years later he succeeded his father- 

 in-law as vicar of that place. While following his vocation he also devoted 

 himself with keen enthusiasm to horticulture and the study of herbs; in his 

 large garden grew many a herb that was not to be found in his neighbours' 

 gardens and with the peculiar properties of which he was well acquainted. 

 The eldest of his large family was a son, Carl, born on the 2.3rd May 1707. 

 Even in his earliest childhood Carl displayed the same keen interest in botany 

 that his father had done; his greatest joy was to work in the small garden 

 he had had laid out and there to cultivate as many remarkable plants as 

 possible. At his school, at Vaxio, however, he was, as he himself relates, 

 far from happy; "crude schoolmasters in a crude manner gave the children 

 a mind for sciences enough to make their hair stand on end." In humanistics, 

 which at that time were the most important, he likewise made but little 

 progress, but he was all the more successful in the physical-mathematical 

 subjects. His teacher in physics, Rothman, quickly recognizing his great gift 

 for natural science, gave him Boerhaave's and Tournefort's works to read 

 and urged Carl's family to accept his plan to devote himself to medicine 

 instead of studying for the priesthood. In 172.7 he became an undergraduate 

 at Lund, where he found a paternal friend in Stobasus, professor of medicine. 

 On the advice of Rothman, however, he removed for the next academical 

 year to Upsala, where the medical teaching was considered to be of a higher 

 standard according to the requirements of the age, which, however, is not 

 saying very much. Linnasus had for the most part to carry on his studies by 

 himself. During his first term at Upsala he lived in dire want, but he soon 



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