CH A RiAC F BR S. 
proper medical profeffors, Zimmer- 
man attended the mathematical and 
ery leétures, and gained a 
nowledge of” Enelifh ‘literature. 
He pailed four years in this univer- 
fity’; ‘part of the laft' of which he 
employed in experiments on the 
do@rine of irritability, firft pro- 
pofed by the Enelifh anatomif 
Gliffon, and afterwards purfued 
with fo much fuccefs by Haller. 
Zimmerman made this principle 
the fubject of his inaugural: thetis, 
in 1751; ‘and the clearnefs of ftyle 
and method with which he’exp!ain- 
ed the dodirine, with the ftrength 
of the experimental proofs by which 
he fupported it, gained him‘ great 
reputation. Our anatomical ‘read- 
ers are doubticfs acquainted with 
the controverfies which this new 
fyftem excited. Though Haller 
was generally confidered as iis au- 
thor, feveral attacks were directed 
againft Zimmerman in particular, 
which he was wife enough to dif- 
regard, leaving his facts to fpeak 
for themfelves. 
After a few months fpent in a 
tour to Hojland and France, he 
returned to Bernin 1752, where he 
was received with great cordiality. 
In this year he publifhed an accotnt 
of Haller, in a fhort letter to a 
friend, inferted in the journal of 
Neufchatel, and written in French. 
Though his only work in that lan- 
age, it has much elegance of 
yle; and it was the bafis of his 
Life of Haller which was publifhed 
at Zurich in 1755, a large 8vo, in 
German. During his flay at Bern 
he married a very amiable and cul- 
tivated lady, a relation of Haller, 
of the name of Meley, then widow 
of aM. Stek. Shortly afterward, 
the poft of public phyfician to his 
native town of Brug becoming va- 
379 
cant, he received an invitation to. 
occupy it; with which he complied, 
Here he earneftly devoted himfelf 
to the ftudies and duties of his pro- 
feflion; not neglecting, however, 
thofe literary purfuits which are 
neceflary to fill up the time of a: 
man of education, in a place which’ 
affords few of the refources of fuit- 
able fociety. He amufed himfelf, 
oceafionally with writing little 
pieces, which he fent to a journal 
printed at Zurich under the title 
of The Monitor. As his pleafures- 
were almoft exclufively confined to 
his family and his fludy, he here 
contraéted that real or fuppofed 
love for folitude, which gave fuch 
a colour to his writings, if not to 
his life. It feems, however, at firft 
to have been rather forced than 
natural; and to have been the fple- 
netic refource of a man who was 
never well fatisfied with the ob- 
feurity of a fituation which was 
by no means adequate to his talents 
and reputation. Jn this place, his 
years paffed on ufefully for the 
improvement of his mind; but, as 
it appears, not very happily. His 
natural fenfibility, from a want of 
objects to divert it, preyed on it- 
felf; and he was rendered miferable 
by a thoufand domeftic cares and 
anxieties, which he would have felt 
much more lightly in the tumult of 
public life. He took, however, the 
beit method in his power for relief, 
by employing his pen with affiduity 
on profeilional and literary topics. 
In 1754, he fent to the Phyfico- 
Medical Society of Bafil, a very 
good cafe of fpafmodic quincy, 
together with fome obfervations on 
the hyfteric tumours of Sydenham. 
In 1755 he compofeda fhort poem, 
in German, on the earthquake of 
Lilkon; which was wuch efteemed 
by 
