CAROLUS LINN&US 31 



specimens. On this suggestion Linnaeus at 

 once began making an herbarium of his own; 

 its contents being the plants of Lund and its 

 vicinity. But what he wished, far beyond 

 anything else, was access to the library, though 

 he did not dare ask for the privilege. There 

 he would be sure to find the works of Tourne- 

 fort, original and unabridged, and even older 

 and rarer standards of the best botany. The 

 privilege came at last, and in a remarkable 

 manner; by a chain of circumstances that 

 demonstrates the young LinnaBus's irrepres- 

 sible zeal and most unexampled industry in 

 acquiring knowledge of botany. 



Doctor Stobffius, the owner of the first 

 museum of natural history that Linna3us had 

 beheld, was, by Linna3us's account of him, 

 not only of great learning and of surpassing 

 skill in the healing art, but also himself a 

 feeble sickly man, having but one eye, being 

 also crippled in one foot, and a gloomy hypo- 

 chondriac. A student or two in his household 

 was a necessity. Much of his medical practice 

 was by correspondence, and on some of the 

 professional visits the student must be sent. 

 At the time of Linnseus's coming a medical 

 student from Germany had long been Dr. 

 Stoba3us's main dependence for help; was 



