50 CAROLUS LINNAEUS 



that he almost believed that himself; and, 

 as now the tide had set strongly in his favor 

 as a medical practitioner at Stockholm, he 

 had resolved to abandon forever the service 

 of Flora and devote himself wholly to that 

 of jEsculapius. And the tide of Linnseus's 

 fortune in medicine rose higher. One and 

 another of the nobility became numbered 

 among his patients, and at last, the queen 

 herself; and now, as he said in a letter to a 

 friend, no one who was ill could get well it 

 seemed, without his help. 



On September 15, 1739, he thus writes to 

 Haller from Stockholm: "I began to get money, 

 and was busy in attendance on the sick, from 

 four in the morning till late in the evening; 

 nor were my nights uninterrupted by the calls 

 of my patients. Aha! said I, ^Esculapius is the 

 giver of all good things; Flora bestows nothing 



and calls upon all the world to say if anybody understands 

 them. I am said to be ignorant of scientific terms. He 

 judges me by the principles of Rivinus, and hundreds of the 

 vilest scribblers. Inasmuch as this man humbles me, so do 

 you, whose learning and sense have been made sufficiently 

 evident, exalt me. It distresses me to read the commenda- 

 tions you are pleased to heap upon so unworthy an object. 

 I wish there might ever be any reason to expect that I could 

 evince my gratitude and regard for you. I hope life will 

 be granted me, to give some proof of my not being quite 

 unworthy." 



