Emil du Bois-Reymond. 125 



cessible questions. Not to mention the facilities afforded by various 

 accessory instruments keys, rheochord," &c. 



And to us of the newer generation whether we agree or disagree 

 with the theoretical conceptions that were the impelling force of du 

 Bois-Reymond's patient endeavours not the least of his services have 

 been these very real and positive achievements in the dull field of 

 preliminary grovelling. We cannot criticise his conceptions except by 

 means of the weapons he has himself fashioned and placed in our 

 hands. 



As every student knows, the discoveries of du Bois-Reymond are 

 of fundamental importance ; he was the first to give definite proof 

 that active muscle undergoes chemical alteration, and that both muscle 

 and nerve undergo alterations of their electromotive properties during 

 physiological activity. It is certainly no exaggerated estimate of 

 du Bois' share in the evolution of animal electricity born 50 years 

 before in the Casa Galvani at Bologna to say that he has been the 

 active hinge round which the entire subject has been turned from an 

 empirical to a rational aspect. And we shall hardly be guilty of 

 injustice to either his predecessors or his successors in the field if we 

 regard the historical development of animal electricity as falling natu- 

 rally into two volumes a volume before du Bois-Reymond and a 

 volume after du Bois-Reymond. 



But this estimate of his place in Science, considerable as it is, and 

 none the less considerable in that this " torso" this " monstrum per 

 defedum" as he somewhat mournfully characterises the " Thierische 

 Elektricitat," never fulfilled the ideals of the young and zealous student, 

 s the smallest part of the man himself. He was the last of the ency- 

 clopaedists, yet a man of strenuous simplicity, a fervent preacher of the 

 broad gospel of " the mother of the sciences," less to the limited circle 

 of professed scientists than to the wide audience of thinkers, whether 

 in science or in law or letters, that are the brain of the German body. 

 The authoritative weight of his voice was in this respect unique, and 

 was the outcome of a concurrence of tributary qualifications qualifi- 

 cations of blood, of character, of training, of family circumstances, and 

 of official circumstances. 



Sprung from a Huguenot stock, and bred chiefly in Berlin, he was a 

 happy blend of German thoroughness with French keenness. With 

 four languages at command, German, French, English, and Italian, he 

 spoke and wrote German with a clearness and elegance that joined 

 to the fact that whenever he spoke and wrote, he gave expression to 

 his own mind rendered him a writer and orator of the first rank, 

 second indeed to none of his contemporaries. And by the influence 

 thus acquired, he was enabled to advance the material interests of 

 Physiology, while he contributed in no small measure to the education 



