I70 



NA TURE 



[June 21, 1900 



anatomical memoir was an investigation upon sperma- 

 tozoa, published in 1841, with which he took his degree of 

 philosophy at Ziirich in 1841, and of medicine at Heidel- 

 berg in 1842. In the former year he passed his State 

 examination, of which he records the following contre- 

 temps :— 



" I, who had at my fingers' ends the finest ramifications 

 of the cranial nerves, the structure of the auditory 

 labyrinth, of the eye, the brain, and so forth, was unable 

 to answer a question on the portal vein." 



This is an experience which will assuredly come home 

 to many, and while hence eliciting our sympathies, will 

 at the same time afford no slight consolation to those 

 who reflect on the subsequent achievements of the un- 

 fortunate examinee. 



IVi 1 841 KoUiker was appointed assistant to Henle, 

 who had received the chair of anatomy at Zurich. In 

 the following year he took a trip to Naples, where he 

 made the acquaintance of Delle Chiaje, Costa and 

 Krohn, and occupied himself with, amongst other things, 

 his well-known studies on the development of Cephalo- 

 pods. In 1843 he became docent at Zurich, and was 

 prosector to Henle from 1842 until the latter's promotion 

 to Heidelberg in 1844. Henle's chair was then divided 

 into one of anatomy and one of physiology, and Kolliker 

 received the latter ; but in 1847 he accepted a call to 

 Wiirzburg. His departure from Zurich, which was much 

 regretted there, was largely caused by political intrigues 

 in the faculty of the University. 



At Wiirzburg he occupied, at first, the chair of com- 

 parative anatomy, but in 1849 he received that of anatomy, 

 which he has now filled for more than fifty years, in a 

 way that needs no praise. The names of many of the 

 most eminent professors of anatomy in Germany, past 

 or present, are to be found in the lists of his pupils or 

 assistants, of whom it is only necessary to mention C. 

 Gegenbaur, Fr. Leydig, R. Wiedersheim, H. Grenacher 

 and Th. Eimer. In 1848 he was associated with von 

 Siebold in founding the Zeitschrift fiir wissenschaftliche 

 Zoologie, of which famous journal he is still one of the 

 editors. 



The accounts of his many journeys are compiled, for 

 the most part, from letters written by him at the time to 

 his relations or friends. There is much of mterest to 

 be found in them, especially in his visits to England. 

 His first acquaintance with this country was made in 

 1845, and renewed on many subsequent occasions. In 

 his letters he gives his impressions of England and 

 English life. He quickly made for himself a large circle 

 of intimate scientific friends, amongst whom he mentions, 

 particularly in his earlier letters, the names of Todd, 

 Bowman, Grant, Sharpey, Edward Forbes and Wharton 

 Jones. His time in London seems to have been very 

 well filled up, as he writes in one letter that in the last 

 twelve days he had gone through nine dinners and two 

 breakfasts, some of which do not seem to have been very 

 entertaining. " I took part yesterday in a fearfully weari- 

 some dinner, enough to kill one (etwas ganz totmach- 

 endes)," he writes ; and further on he complains that 

 "these everlasting dinners, lasting from 6 to 11^ o'clock, 

 have taken me en grippe^ as the French say ; but what 

 can one do ? " But in other cases he seems to have 

 been happier. In London he is presented at Court, and 

 NO. 1599, VOL. 62] 



finds that " the Queen is really pretty, and Prince Albert 

 is also a handsome man." On the eve of his departure, 

 he expresses himself almost as much at home in London, 

 in spite of its size, as in Zurich, and considers it " very 

 interesting, often pleasant, but for the most part fatiguing." 

 He visited this country again in 1850 and 1857, on both 

 of which occasions he spent some, or most, of the time 

 in Scotland, where he became ihtimately acquainted with 

 John Goodsir and Allen Thomson, and in London with 

 Queckett. His letters from Scotland to C. Th. von 

 Siebold contain some interesting remarks about English 

 science and scientific men. 



" The English doctors and physicians are, above all, 

 practical men, and all that pertains to the theoretical 

 side takes with them the second place. This is partly 

 owing to the fact that the English are a people occupied 

 chiefly with commerce, but only partly so ; the chief 

 cause of the phenomenon in question is the fact that 

 science does not hold the place it deserves in popular 

 estimation, nor is it supported by the Government in 

 such a way that a man who devotes himself to it can be 

 free from care." 



This is the reason, he thinks, why so many men full 

 of enthusiasm for science remain in practice, and finally 

 lose themselves in it ; while others regard theoretical 

 studies merely as an advertisement to gain them more 

 clients, since practice in England is golden, and procures 

 for the practitioner a position which contrasts vividly with 

 that of a professor. 



" I know only three anatomists and physiologists in 

 England," he adds, " who do not practise — namely, Owen, 

 Sharpey and Grant, of whom Owen alone has a position 

 at all equal to his merits." 



In 1850 he also paid a short visit to Oxford, where 

 he met Acland, Strickland and J. V. Carus, but found 

 little that attracted him, and he returned, he tells us, to 

 noisy but infinitely more stimulating London, well satis- 

 fied that he was not obliged to spend all his days in 

 "this most peculiar of all university towns." 



Space does not permit of reference to the many in- 

 teresting personal reminiscences or amusing incidents 

 which recur so frequently in this book, especially that 

 detailed in two letters on p. 162, of which we lose nothing 

 by its being to a large extent veiled in the obscurity of 

 the English tongue. It can only be said that the book 

 affords delightful reading, and gives pleasing glimpses 

 of a warm-hearted and charming personality as well as 

 of a great man of science. E. A. M. 



DIFFERENTIAL EQUATIONS. 

 Theory of Differential Equations. By A. R. Forsyth, 

 Sc.D., F.R.S. Part i. (1890). Pp. xiv-f 340. Part ii. 

 (1900). Pp. xii -f 344, and x -f- 392. (Cambridge : At 

 the University Press.) 



ALTHOUGH these volumes contain more than a 

 thousand pages, it would be premature to express 

 an opinion upon the plan and proportions of Prof. 

 Forsyth's work as a whole ; so much of his vast subject 

 still remains unrepresented. Thus the reader will find 

 nothing, except incidentally, of the theory of partial 

 differential equations ; and, what is more remarkable, 

 the subject of ordinary linear equations has been reserved 

 for a future volume. However, the two parts which have 



