TUE HISTORY OF VETEIUXARY MEDICINE. 049 



is not, liowever, iiia])propriate to the siil)jec't of this book to gwo a 

 short sketch of the life of a man uho has wiekled such a mighty 

 intellectnal iutiuence in the world's progress. 



'' Albert von Ilaller * was born at Bern, Switzerland, in 1708, and 

 in early youth demonstrated a systematic spirit and a strong scien- 

 tific tendency. lie began to make for himself a private dictionary 

 as soon as he was able to write, in which he entered all words hith- 

 erto unknown to him, with their meanings, lie also made a dic- 

 tionary of a similar character as soon as he began the study of for- 

 eign languages, and when he began the study of history he followed 

 the same course. He often said that in his later years he found 

 valuable information in these works of his youthful days. AVhen 

 ten years old he had already shown his taste for poetry by writing 

 ludicrous verses about his teachei's, his poetic talent at this time 

 having a special bent to satire, which he, however, entirely gave up 

 in later years. In l~'2'-\ when he was fifteen years old, he went to 

 the Univei*sity of Tubingen, to study medicine under Duvernoi and 

 Camerarius. In the ne.xt year he wrote a polemic against an ana- 

 tomical assertion of Professor Coshwitz at Ilalle. He did not re- 

 main long at Tubingen, ;is he, with other students, had made a 

 shepherd so drunk with high-wine (Branntwein) that the latter lost 

 his life. In 172.') he removed to Lcyden, to study under the guid- 

 ance of the immortal Boerhaave. At eighteen years of age he ac- 

 quired his degree of doctor of medicine, visited England and France, 

 but had to flee from Paris, because it was found that he had made 

 dissections of human bodies at his residence. From Paris he went 

 to Basel and studied mathematics under Bernoulli ; but in 1729 he 

 returned to the place of his nativity, Bern, in order to practice his 

 profession ; at the same time he studied botany with great earnest- 

 ness. In 1734 he became director of the hospitals of his city, and 

 also had an amphitlieatre built in which he gave anatomical lectures. 

 Most of his poems were written at this time. In 1735 he had con- 

 trol of the City Library, which he himself used with the greatest 

 diligence. In 1730 he was called to Gottingen as Professor of Anat- 

 omy, Chemistry, and Botany ; he also explained the ' Institutions ' of 

 his master, Boerhaave, which he himself })ublished with commentaries 

 in 1730. At this period he still busied himself with botany, and pub- 

 lished several works of classical importance upon the subject ; he 

 also wrote a large number of important anatomiciil papers, besides 

 publishing an atlas of anatomy. But it is for his contributions to 

 physiology that Ilaller is as much noted as for any other of his mani- 

 * "Geschichte d. Mcdicin," Wundcrlich, Stuttgart, 1859, 



