206 The Physiology of Digestion [lect. 



of Hanover, possibly instigated by Hans Sloane, created for 

 him and offered to him a chair of anatomy, botany and medicine, 

 in the University of Gottingen. Haller accepted the offer, and 

 here, at Gottingen, for seventeen years he laboured, making 

 physiology the chief duty of the chair. Here he carried out 

 the most important of his inquiries and gathered together the 

 material for most of his literary work. 



He received several tempting offers to accept office in other 

 Universities, in Oxford, Berlin and elsewhere. These he refused; 

 but in 1753 feeling that the increase of years, aided by the 

 climate of Gottingen, was telling upon his health, and he had 

 never been robust, he withdrew to his native city Bern, there to 

 spend the rest of his days in leisurely retirement. 



Here or in some neighbouring part of Switzerland he lived 

 for nearly a quarter of a century, refusing to be tempted back 

 to Gottingen or to go elsewhere, taking his part in municipal 

 and other duties, completing his Elementa and his other works 

 of compilation or exposition, giving finishing touches to experi- 

 mental inquiries, and, by way of relaxation, continuing his 

 botanical studies and composing poems and literary essays. 

 Disease however got increasing hold of him, severe pain led 

 him to the constant use of opium, and his medical friend having 

 in 1776 foretold that his death would take place in the following 

 year, he made good the prophecy by quietly passing away on 

 Dec. 12, 1777. He died, true to the errand of his life, with his 

 finger on his pulse, his last words to the friend at his bedside 

 being " The artery no longer beats." 



I do not propose now to speak of Haller's many and varied 

 original inquiries, or of the gains which came to physiology 

 thereby. He put his hand to the solution of many questions 

 spread over nearly the whole of physiology ; and in the preface 

 to the sixth volume of the Elementa he gives a list of what 

 he claims as some of his own discoveries. Of the highest 

 importance were his researches on the mechanics of respi- 

 ration, on the formation of bone, and on the development of 

 the embryo ; the latter indeed stands out as the most con- 

 spicuous piece of work on this subject between Malpighi 

 and von Baer, though marred by the theoretical specula- 





