Z TRANS. ST. LOUIS ACAD. SCIENCE. 



■CO lid not fail to make an impression upon the active and studiously 

 inclined mind of the young scholar, and thus create intellectual 

 inclinations which no doubt guided his sentiments and shaped 

 his course and predilections throughout his life. He was a fre- 

 quenter of the public institutions of his native city, especially the 

 Senkenberg Institute, and, having distinguished himself as an apt 

 and industrious scholar, he was aided in his future studies by a 

 scholarship, which he entered upon in 1827 at the University of 

 Heidelberg. Here he met and formed an intimate association 

 with Louis Agassiz, Charles Schimper, and Alexander Braun, 

 which was supported and fostered by their mutual enthusiastic 

 devotion to the study of the natural sciences. 



Having become involved in a political demonstration of the 

 "Burschenhaft," then representing the liberal party of young Ger- 

 many, he was compelled to absent himself from Heidelberg in 

 the fall of 1828, and, after having quietly pursued his studies for 

 the next ensuing two years at Berlin, he became induced by the 

 great reputation of the genial Prof. Schonlein to pass the remain- 

 der of his university life at Wiirzberg, where he graduated in 

 1831 as Doctor of Medicine. His inaugural dissertation, written 

 on this occasion, was published the following year at Frankfort, 

 and created quite a stir among the large circle of acquaintances 

 the young scientist had formed. It is called "Z>e Antholysi 

 ProdroDius" and treats of the morphological monstrosities of 

 plants, a subject which had been handled some forty years previ- 

 ously in a treatise on the metamorphosis of plants by one called 

 " the most distinguished native of Frankfort." When this scien- 

 tist received a copy of the essay through the instrumentality of a 

 friend, he was so well pleased with its contents, and impressed 

 so favorably with the young author who " had completely appre- 

 hended his ideas of vegetable morphology and shown such ge- 

 nius in their devolopment, that he offered to place in the hand of 

 this young botanist the store of unpublished notes and sketches 



