194 OBITUARY OF J)R. FRANZ UNGER. 



members of the Society, who could not forgive their President for not 

 maliing an exception in favour of religious belief, and they conse- 

 quently left. But no sooner was this known than a large number of 

 persons of the town, naturalists and not naturalists, joined the Society. 

 It was a demonstration full of significance, which found its echo else- 

 where. But it was the last time that Unger was to frighten his an- 

 tagonists ; six weeks later he was a corpse. Science, too, has its 

 martyrs. 



Unger, his full name vvas Franz Joseph Andreas Nicolaus, was born 

 on the 30th of November, 1800, on the farm of Amthof, near Leut- 

 schach, in Styria, his father being a native of Carinthia, where his family 

 had for generations carried on the business of brewers, and his mother, 

 a gentlewoman from Marburg, of considerable property. At the age 

 ot ten, Unger was sent to school at a Benedictine Convent in Graz, 

 where, notwithstanding his repugnance to the institution, he had to 

 stop until 1816. He there attended a course of philosophical lectures, 

 and after that, at the request of his father, who wished him to qualify 

 himself for administering the family estates, he studied law, but at the 

 same time attended to Natural History lectures of Dr. L. von Vest, 

 In 1819, he, fortunately for us botanists, made the acquaintance of 

 A. Sauter, of Salzburg, the well-known botanist, to whose influence it 

 is especially due that Unger followed in his wake. Having studied 

 medicine at Vienna, and in 1822 at Prague, he made in 1823 a tour to 

 Northern Germany, pushing as far as the island of Riigen, and making 

 the acquaintance of Oken, Carus, Eudolphi, and others. At that 

 time, the darkest days of the Metternichian period, it was criminal for 

 any Austrian to travel abroad without special permission. Unger had 

 dispensed with that permission, and no sooner did he show his face 

 again at Vienna, to complete his medical studies, than he was put in 

 prison, where he was kept for nine months ; but during this time he 

 was able to occupy himself with philological and philosophical studies, 

 dramatic attempts, and investigations of Invertebrate animals; he was 

 even allowed to make occasional botanical excursions to the Prater and 

 Botanic Gardens, always accompanied by a guard. Having in 1825 

 regained his freedom, he reopened communication with his numerous 

 scientific friends, especially with Dr. Eble, — for whose work, ' The Hair 

 of Organic Nature,' he supplied the drawings of the vegetable hair, — 

 and with Dr. Sauter, Avho introduced him to Dr. Diesing, and also to 



