150 Wilhelm His 



position of the organs, upon the general morphology and structure of 

 the brain, upon embryology, histology and histogenesis, and upon 

 anatomical terminology, it may safely be said that there is barely a page 

 in the broad field of anatomy from the ovum to the adult in wliich his 

 work does not appear. 



Early in his career. His showed much interest in physical anthropology 

 as we see by the great monograph he and Eiitemeyer published on Swiss 

 skulls. But his time was occupied in so many other directions that it was 

 impossible for him to continue in this kind of work with the inadequate 

 assistance he had at Basel. However, some thirty years later, he had an 

 opportunity to open up a new line of research in anthropology. A skele- 

 ton, presumably that of Bach, had been found and His was asked to give 

 an opinion regarding it. It was known that Bach had been buried in an 

 oak coffin near a certain corner of a church-yard. Here among others 

 was found the skeleton of an elderly man (Bach died at the age of sixty- 

 five) in an oak coffin. The skull was found to be peculiar and in it the 

 anatomist could discern the features of the portraits of Bach. His at 

 once proceeded to measure the thicknesses of the soft parts over the bony 

 prominences of the heads of cadavers and found that in average bodies 

 these thicknesses are constant, varying only with age and sex. He next 

 drew averages from the measurements taken from cadavers of elderly 

 men of fair development, and, with these, Seffner, the sculptor, con- 

 structed a clay bust on the skull in question. It was found that the re- 

 constructed bust presented all of the characteristics of Bach even more 

 pronouncedly than do his portraits. The commission that had the matter 

 in charge decided that the skeleton in question was undoubtedly that of 

 Bach. As such, it was reinterred. The musical world through His's 

 studies now has a bust of the great composer. 



These results gave His the greatest aesthetic pleasure, for they meant 

 a new victory." From, this time on he was greatly interested in induc- 

 tive anatomy and when I began my career at the Johns Hopkins, he 

 gave me every possible encouragement in this direction.''* He often wrote 

 and he often talked about statistical work, but little did I realize the 

 difficulties of it until we began to tabulate a peripheral nervous system 

 from a very large number of individual records. It became apparent 

 from our records that variations are more common in certain parts of 

 the body than in others and this result interested His very much." 



His was never inclined to develop a school nor was he anxious to have 

 pupils. When I knocked at his door at first I was turned away, but 

 after appearing a number of times, was finally accepted. When he set 

 a problem, it was concisely stated; he outlined the general plan by which 



