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KARL FREIHERR VON ROKITANSKI. 



audience with such enthusiasm as he. He could rivet the attention of 

 a hundred young men as easily while he explained the metre of an Ode 

 of Pindar, as when he discoursed on a poem of Simonides. His personal 

 influence on his favorite pupils was almost unequalled, and it still sur- 

 vives as a most important element in the German scholarship of the 

 present generation. In 1865, in consequence of an unfortunate per- 

 sonal difference in which a large number of the professors of Bonn 

 were directly or indirectly involved, Ritschl felt compelled to resign 

 his professorship. It was a sad day for the University of Bonn when 

 its first scholar and its chief ornament withdrew ; but the older Uni- 

 versity of Leipzig wisely improved the opportunity to recover its 

 ancient glory in philology, which it had lost since the death of Gott- 

 fried Hermann in 1848. Ritschl was welcomed back to the university 

 in which he had begun his academic studies, and the throng of two 

 hundred pupils in his lecture-room soon showed the wisdom of the 

 authorities of Leipzig in securing him. His health, however, which 

 had never been strong, soon failed rapidly ; but his mind and his 

 energy remained firm in spite of bodily infirmities. He continued at 

 his post of duty until the last, and lectured in the university even 

 after he was so infirm that he was carried to his desk in a chair. 



Ritschl's chief services to philology were his critical labors on the 

 text of Plautus, of which he has been called the " restorer," and his 

 investigation of the more ancient forms of the Latin language as a 

 basis for the scientific study of Latin Grammar. But, like many Ger- 

 man professors of the highest learning and the widest influence, 

 he exerted himself chiefly in educating a new generation of scholars, 

 and inspiring young men with his own high ideal of scholarship, in 

 which he set them a noble example of conscientious thoroughness, 

 profound learning, and untiring zeal. 



KARL FREIHERR VON ROKITANSKI. 



Karl Freiherr von Rokitanski, the world-renowned patholo- 

 gist, was born at Koniggratz, Bohemia, in 1804. He was educated 

 first at Leitmeritz. then at Prague, and lastly at Vienna, whither he 

 went in 1824 as a medical student. He graduated in 1828, having 

 already become assistant to Johanu Wagner, Professor of Pathology. 

 On the death of Wagner, in 1832, Rokitanski was made Professor, 

 and was appointed Prosector at the Vienna General Hospital. Here 

 his capacity for work proved almost incredible, a thousand autopsies 

 a year being the usual number he averaged for scores of years. 



