ON THOUGHT IN MEDICINE. 221 



in anatomical dissections a great means of education 

 for independent observation, which is wanting in the 

 other faculties, and to which I am disposed to attach 

 great weight. Microscopic demonstrations were iso- 

 lated and infrequent in the lectures. Microscopic 

 instruments were costly and scarce. I came into pos- 

 session of one by having spent my autumn vacation 

 in 1841 in the Charite, prostrated by typhoid fever; as 

 pupil, I was nursed without expense, and on my re- 

 covery I found myself in possession of the savings of 

 my small resources. The instrument was not beautiful, 

 yet I was able to recognise by its means the prolonga- 

 tions of the ganglionic cells in the invertebrata, which 

 I described in my dissertation, and to investigate the 

 vibrions in my research on putrefaction and fermenta- 

 tion. 



Any of my fellow-students who wished to make 

 experiments had to do so at the cost of his pocket- 

 money. One thing we learned thereby, which the 

 younger generation does not, perhaps, learn so well in 

 the laboratories that is, to consider in all directions 

 the ways and means of attaining the end, and to ex- 

 haust all possibilities, in the consideration, until a prac- 

 ticable path was found. We had, it is true, an almost 

 uncultivated field before us, in which almost every 

 stroke of the spade might produce remunerative results. 



It was one man more especially who aroused our 



