LIFE AND WORK OF FELIX HOPPE-SEYLER. 543 



Very similar in natural gifts though Huxley and Hoppe-Seyler 

 were, the different environments under which they were placed de- 

 termined their development in radically different paths. Huxley, 

 though possessing a strong natural tendency toward physiology, was 

 forced to become an anatomist, and from a very early date his great 

 controversial powers were called into such requisition that his name 

 became almost a household word among the English peoples. Hoppe- 

 Seyler, on the other hand, while still very young, was given a decided 

 impetus toward the study of the chemistry of organism, and, as a 

 pioneer in a new science, was little known outside the immediate 

 circle of his personal friends and scientific colaborers. 



Felix Hoppe-Seyler deserves to be remembered by mankind not 

 only for the valuable contributions he made to our knowledge of 

 the chemical processes of life, not only for the impetus he gave to the 

 development of a new science, physiological chemistry, but also for 

 the influence he exerted on the minds of his pupils and colaborers. 

 Great investigator though he was, and lasting though his influence 

 on the development of biochemistry will be, he probably served 

 mankind best in his capacity as a teacher. As there has not appeared 

 in any English or American journal a just account of the value of 

 the life and work of this illustrious man, a brief sketch of one to 

 whom the world in the future will probably consider itself indebted, 

 not less indeed than to Jenner, Pasteur, Koch, and Lister, may be 

 of interest, and some recognition, insufficient though it be, of his 

 lifelong services. 



Ernst Eelix Imisiandel Hoppe, better known as Eelix Hoppe- 

 Seyler, was born in Ereiburg in Thuringen, on the 26th of December, 

 1825, and died suddenly of heart disease at his summer home on Lake 

 Constance on the 10th of August, 1895. He was the tenth child of 

 the Pastor Ernst Hoppe and Frederike Nitzsch. He came of a 

 long line of school teachers and ministers. His mother died when 

 he was six years old, and his father three years later. The lad re- 

 ceived a temporary home with his brother-in-law. Dr. Seyler, but 

 soon entered the orphan asylum at Halle, where he attended the 

 gymnasium. 



His stay in Halle exerted a great influence on his later life, 

 for the regime at the institution which was his home was of Spartan- 

 like simplicity and rigidity. He came under the influence here, 

 also, of the old apothecary of the institution, who took great delight 

 in introducing young Hoppe to the mysteries of chemistry, in which 

 he soon acquired considerable proficiency. He was dismissed from 

 the gymnasium as a diligent student in 1846, with a preference for 

 the natural sciences and mathematics, and in the autumn of the 

 same year was matriculated in the medical faculty of the University 



