MEMOIR OF BARON HALLER. 27 



on the examination of Haller's very numerous and 

 successive labours, is the rapid changes which he 

 made from one subject to another. Most profoundly 

 versed in some of them, he seems on all occasions 

 on the level with the most advanced cultivators in 

 each department, and frequently surpasses them all. 

 However much then he may he the object of our 

 admiration, on account of his classical attainments, 

 his poetical powers, or his botanical knowledge, we 

 now remark that he became still more eminent for 

 his physiological researches. It is upon these that 

 his highest celebrity is based, and in this view, 

 therefore, we are now chiefly to regard him. On 

 the death of his master, Boerhaave, in 1738, Haller 

 published his prelections, with much original matter, 

 in six volumes, which appeared successively from 

 1739 to 1745. But his own discoveries and im- 

 provements soon tended to render this work obsolete ; 

 and in 1747 appeared the first edition of his " First 

 Lines of Physiology? a synopsis of his own system 

 of that branch of science. This is a truly valuable 

 production which, long after the death of the author, 

 was used as a text-book in the schools, and has 

 only lately been superseded. During the subse- 

 quent years of his life, he continued to augment 

 and perfect this production, and published it in 

 eight volumes, quarto, between the years 1757 and 

 1766, under the title of Elements of Physiology. 

 Though referring chiefly to man, as usually exhibit- 

 ing the utmost perfection of structure, yet it is by 

 no means confined to him, and ranges widely over 



