250 THE HISTORY OF VETERINARY MEDICINE. 



fold accomplishments. His Urst appearance in this branch of sci- 

 ence was a polemical work on respiration in 1727. He demonstrated 

 that there was no air between the pleura costalis and lungs, against 

 the contrary assertions of Professor Hamberger. Haller's fame, 

 and with it that of the Gottingen University, increased each year ; 

 he laid the foundation of the Gottingen Scientific Society, and a 

 periodical, which is still in existence, devoted to science. After sev- 

 enteen years of unceasing activity his health broke down, and he 

 was obliged to return to Bern in 1753, where he took an active in- 

 terest and part in the government, and published numerous works 

 upon botany, anatomy, surgery, the practice of medicine — all of 

 them of classical importance. During the last years of his life he 

 scarcely left his library — sleeping, eating, working, and receiving 

 his friends and visitors there. His wife, children, pupils, and 

 friends were all kept busy aiding this wonderfully gifted man in his 

 work ; only in this way was it possible for a human being to give 

 to the world the almost incredible amount of literary work which 

 he did. Haller died, beloved and respected of all, at the place of 

 his birth, on the 12th of December, 1777." In 1877 his native 

 city fitly celebrated the one hundredth anniversary of the death 

 of this her greatest son, whose name and fame will be held immortal 

 so long as memory lasts and mankind continues to reverence the 

 noblest among the children of the world, who, though dead in form, 

 still live that immortality which is given but to the selected few. 



I have previously mentioned that among the most important con- 

 tributions to veterinary literature in the eighteenth century was a 

 writing by Haller upon an epizootic disease of the cattle of Switzer- 

 land, an edition of which appeared at Bern in 1773, entitled " Me- 

 moire sur la Contagion parmi le Betail." 



" In this year (174:5) * the immortal Haller published his inves- 

 tigations into the nature of an epizootic which had several times 

 been observed in Switzerland. The great physician supposed it 

 was the ' cattle-plague,' but no one can read his description of this 

 Swiss malady without surmising that it was a different disease, in 

 all probability the bovine contagious pleuro-pneumonia. Such an 

 authority needs no apology for being quoted here, especially as his 

 preventive measures are worthy of notice, and would probably have 

 saved this country a great loss had they been adopted in recent 

 years : 



" 1. The first thing necessary is to determine the nature of the 

 disease. This knowledge is not easily acquired, for frequently it 



* Fleming, loc. cit., p. 446. 



