KLUYVER AS PROFESSOR; CHRONICLES OF THE LABORATORY 



Kluyver did not fool himself as to his state of health, and occasion- 

 ally intimated that he reckoned with the possibility of not personally 

 participating in the developments of the near future. When, in rapid 

 succession, the fathers of two members of the personnel died from old- 

 age complaints, he expressed the hope that he himself would pass 

 away amidst his work, and in full possession of his powers. 



On Saturday, May 12, he attended the annual meeting of the 

 'Holland Association of Sciences' in Haarlem; the next day he was 

 occupied with matters concerning the future organization of the labor- 

 atory, working as usual till late at night. During the first hours of May 

 14 the end came. 



Especially during the last year Kluyver had frequently been occupied 

 with problems of life and death. In his lecture, 'Microbe and Life', 

 which he used to call his 'swan song', he had expounded his ideas on 

 the origin of life. While working on another lecture, which he deliv- 

 ered on May 9, 1956, before the Delft student organization 'Vrije 

 Studie', he indicated to his associates in the course of several discus- 

 sions that he would again touch upon his views on the problems of 

 life. It was evident that the preparation for this lecture weighed heav- 

 ily on his mind. But when he began his discourse in the old library of 

 the student union which held so many memories of his own student 

 days, he instantly captured his youthful audience, and it was touching 

 to experience how his devotion succeeded in transmitting, seemingly 

 in the form of a dialogue, the ripened conclusions of his life-long 

 searchings to those whose careers still lay before them. 



Two days later he reported, as was his wont, to his scientific staff in 

 the laboratory; at that time he also mentioned that his heart had trou- 

 bled him considerably during the lecture, and that he had even tried, 

 unsuccessfully, to consult his physician the next day. This was all the 

 more remarkable because he never talked about his state of health, 

 and immediately sidestepped any remark launched by others in this 

 direction. Although he knew that dinner was waiting, he continued 

 the discussion, which presently returned to the subject of the lecture. 

 After having talked about the evolution of the micro-organisms, he 

 turned, as if inevitably, to the influence of environment on man and, 

 in support of a remark, he reiterated the example used in one of his 

 earlier lectures, showing that Darwin and Lincoln, born on the self- 



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