

CHAPTER VII 



PROFESSOR OF ANATOMY AND PHYSIOLOGY 

 AT BONN: 1855-1858 



HELMHOLTZ soon accustomed himself to his new surround- 

 ings. He writes indeed to Bonders in October : ' I could only 

 take a very few of my instruments away from Konigsberg 

 as my own property, and find practically nothing here. It 

 is a case of beginning over again to collect apparatus, and 

 that with uncommonly small funds. Our Ministry still clings 

 to the fiction that it will be involved in the war in the East, 

 and declines to make any outlay of money/ 



But in December he informs his father : ' All goes well here 

 on the whole. While the thermometer in Konigsberg was 

 already below zero, and the freight wagons are crossing the 

 Vistula on the ice, we have had alternately mild frost and wet 

 weather, and are more inclined to moderate our stoves than 

 to keep them up. The effect on Olga's health has been all one 

 hoped; she has left off coughing since we arrived in Bonn. 

 As regards my official position, the prospects for the winter are 

 favourable. I have forty-five students at my lectures, and it 

 is altogether quite different from Konigsberg. The Anatomy 

 Lectures are very troublesome this first time, especially in 

 certain subjects, but it will go much better next year. I find 

 anatomy more interesting too than I had expected, because the 

 teaching of this science has hitherto conspicuously neglected^ 

 the functions of the organs, so that interesting questions and 

 points of view crop up on all sides as soon as one looks at 

 them with the eyes of the physiologist. My success in physio- 

 logy this summer is a little uncertain on account of the rivalry 

 with Professor B. . . . The Faculty proposed that we should 

 each give a course in physiology (instead of dividing it, and 

 each taking a six hours* course, or half of it) after the Dean had 

 asked me if I should not prefer that. I replied that I could 



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