82 HERMANN VON HELMHOLTZ 



From Gottingen, Helmholtz went on by Marburg, where he 

 called on Knoblauch and the physiologist Nasse, to Giessen, 

 in the hope of making acquaintance with Liebig, for whom 

 he had a great admiration. 



' Liebig, the king of chemists, as he himself and his scholars 

 think him, was unfortunately away; he has gone to London 

 to see the Exhibition, and be feted by the English. I much 

 wanted to meet him. All I could do was to see his empty 

 laboratory, to which students flock from the whole of Europe 

 and America, for practical work, and which was shown me 

 by his son, a young doctor who studied physiology with du 

 Bois-Reymond at one time, but will probably go into practice. 

 I was surprised to find no remarkable appliances ; on the con- 

 trary everything was covered with dirt; there were very few 

 people working. It presented an extraordinary contrast to 

 the laboratories of Heintz and others, which are at least as 

 convenient, far better equipped, clean, and tidy. But externals 

 matter little. For in spite of his vanity Liebig is the greatest 

 of living chemists, and his renown as a teacher has spread 

 far and wide/ 



He next went by Frankfurt, where he revived his old 

 admiration of Lessing's Huss, the Ezzelino, and two small 

 landscapes by the same master, to Heidelberg, where he 

 found Henle, and comments on his laboratory as being ex- 

 cellent for anatomy, but poorly equipped for physiology. 

 Henle explained that he had only taken on physiology and 

 general pathology in addition to anatomy, as a temporary 

 arrangement, in consequence of a disagreement with Tiede- 

 mann, and hoped he would soon be given a physiological 

 colleague. ' He suggested to me/ writes Helmholtz to his 

 wife, ' what may make a great difference to our future : viz. 

 he and the younger professors of the Medical Faculty are 

 desirous that I should be offered the Chair at Heidelberg. 

 We must consider this. Heidelberg would not be a bad 

 place to work in: the Germans have rather left it, because 

 there is a dearth of teachers for the moment, but students 

 are still coming from North America, Brazil, England, France, 

 Greece, and Russia/ 



After staying some hours in Baden-Baden, Helmholtz 

 went to Kehl, and crossed the bridge over the Rhine into 



