232 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



reached his seventeenth yeai\ He then went to Berlin, and entered 

 the military school of medicine known as the Frederick William Insti- 

 tute, or as the Pepinitre. It is true that, if medicine was the study of 

 his choice, there were ample facilities for it at any German university. 

 But there were reasons which rendered it advisable to send him to a 

 military institution. Prussia demands of all her sons several years of 

 active service in the army, to begin when they are twenty-one years 

 of age. This regulation provides her with large available forces, but 

 sadly interferes with the pursuits of the young men at a time when 

 the foundation must be laid for their future career. To overcome this 

 difficulty, and to create at the same time a comparatively cultured 

 army, it is provided that those who attend for a short period some 

 military institution, and pass a satisfactory examination of a certain 

 literary grade, shall be more or less exempt from active service in 

 time of peace. Young Helmholtz's parents considered it best that he 

 should avail himself of this provision at an early age, in order to in- 

 sure for him an uninterrupted season of study in subsequent years. 

 But Hermann had also his own reason for entering the military school 

 of medicine. He had been seized with that martial fever which is apt 

 to attack the youth of countries where there is continually a gaudy 

 display of soldiers. 



He went to Berlin, and on the three years which he spent there 

 Helmholtz still looks back as the most pleasant of his life. There were 

 strict rules to be obeyed, and there was hard study to be done ; but 

 there were also short furloughs to be obtained for rambles through the 

 city, and some even long enough for a journey to the old home at 

 Potsdam. The constant feeling of being on duty developed in him 

 that noble manliness which so deeply marks every feature of his face. 



When he was twenty, he graduated from the Pepiniere with an 

 article prepared for his examination marked with all the learning that 

 he has since made his own. His dissertation was on the subject of 

 the nervous system of invertebrate animals, and is the only morpho- 

 logical investigation which he has ever made. 



His treatise evinced such uncommon ability that he was at once 

 ordered to attend as assistant surgeon the hospital of the Charite, in 

 Berlin, and after a few months he was promoted to the rank of phy- 

 sician in a i-egiment of hussars, stationed at Potsdam. This was wise, 

 as it placed the youth again under the wholesome restraints and the 

 kindly influences of the family circle, instead of allowing his hard- 

 earned knowledge and well-trained physique to run to waste, like 

 those of most young officers. 



Helmholtz published in the same year the first fruit of his inde- 

 pendent researches. It was an article on the nature of fermentation, 

 which contains several remarkable suggestions on the subject of spon- 

 taneous generation. The excellence of this production opened to him 

 the pages of the prominent medical magazines, and gave him the 



