4o6 POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



In the autumn of 1861 Moleschott was called hj Cavour to the 

 chair of Physiology in the University of Turin. In 187G he was 

 made senator of the kingdom of Italy, and in 1879 appointed to a 

 professorship in the newly organized University of Rome, where 

 he united with his academical duties and senatorial functions an 

 extensive practice as a physician. There he died, May 20, 1893 ; 

 and, although more than threescore years and ten, he was con- 

 stitutionally so robust that his death may be said to have been 

 premature. Like his father, he fell a victim to overwork and 

 exposure in the conscientious exercise of his profession. During 

 the last twenty years of his life he devoted himself also with laud- 

 able zeal and marked success to the land of his adoption in the 

 promotion of education and the sanitary improvement of the 

 Italian capital and other cities of the realm. 



Moleschott was not only an able and painstaking specialist 

 but also a man of broad culture, an excellent musician, a connois- 

 seur in art, and a keen observer and intelligent critic of all the 

 social, political, philosophical, and theological movements of the 

 age. Whatever concerned the progress of knowledge and the 

 perfection of humanity enlisted his sympathies and secured his 

 support. He was a good linguist, and wrote and spoke French, 

 Italian, and German with rare correctness and facility. The 

 greater part of his works were composed originally in German, 

 which he preferred even to Dutch, his mother tongue, as a me- 

 dium of literary and scientific communication ; but, unlike most 

 German authors, his style is wonderfully clear and succinct, and 

 wholly free from the awkward involutions into which the peculiar 

 genius of the language, its very vitality and plasticity, are apt to 

 tempt the unwary scribe. Moleschott was saved from this fatality 

 by his artistic sense of proportion. In his treatment of a subject 

 he had the rare gift of knowing what to put in, what to leave out, 

 and when to stop. He was a " full " man, in the Baconian use of 

 the term, but was mentally too well poised to slop over. He had 

 inherited a hasty temper, but had learned in early life to keep it 

 under control, and this natural sensitiveness under proper disci- 

 pline rendered him a most charming and sympathetic companion 

 in his intercourse with his family and his friends. Above all, he 

 was thoroughly honest and sincere, and never permitted personal 

 feeling to warp his judgment ; in his controversies and criticisms 

 he was generous and just, welcomed the truth from every source, 

 and did not show the slightest disposition to ignore or depreciate 

 the merits and achievements of an adversary. 



Wirth, 1894, ix, pp. 404). The author is the pastor of St. Leouhard's Church in B41e. 

 We may add that photographs of Moleschott, of a cabinet size, may be procured from his 

 publisher, Emil Roth, in Giessen, for one mark, or twenty-five cents. 



