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FREDERICK ADOLPHUS WISLIZENUS. 



By Dr. G. J. EngelmANN. 



Dr. Frederick Adolphus Wislizenus was born in May, iSio, 

 at Koenigsee in Schwarzburg-Rudolstadt, one of the most beau- 

 tiful of the many little German principalities of that time. He 

 was the youngest of three children of a Protestant minister whose 

 ancestors, certainly not of German, probably of Polish origin, 

 are said to have fled from their homes in Bohemia victims of the 

 religious fanaticism which led to the persecution of Huss and his 

 followers. 



Wislizenus entered upon the study of medicine at the Univer- 

 sita of Jena in 1828. and later studied at Gottingen and at Wiirz- 

 burg. With many of his fellow-students, he became deeply 

 interested in the patriotic but visionary plans of the Burschen- 

 scliaft, of which he was a member, and was one of a handful of 

 young enthusiasts who determined to overthrow the monarchial 

 government of Germany, but were speedily overpowered after a 

 first bold stroke in the city of Frankfort. Some were captured ; 

 others escaped, and among them young Wislizenus,* who fol- 

 lowed his friend and teacher, the great clinician Schoenlein, to 

 Zurich. While here he became interested in the cause of Italy 

 and joined an expedition to aid Mazzini in his struggle against 

 Austrian rule ; but again he was forced to return to his studies, 

 well-intentioned Swiss troops disarming the young men before 

 they had succeeded in reaching the border. 



Wislizenus graduated in Zurich in 1834, visited the Hospitals 

 of Paris, and then sailed for New York, where he entered upon 



* One of his compatriots was Gustavus Koerner, a fellow-student at the University of 

 Jena, who likewise made his escape and Med to the United States, settling in Belleville, 

 111., where he rapidjy assumed prominence, was elected Lieutenant-Governor of the State, 

 and later accredited as United States Ambassador to Spain. In his work, " The German 

 Element in the United States," Koerner pays a handsome tribute to his friend Wislizenus. 



