224 Medicine. 



moving perfect whole, adapted to assume the ac- 

 tions of hfe, and to sustain the impression of sur- 

 rounding objects. 



In this arduous inquiry, which so long engaged 

 the mind of Haller, and which led to so many 

 interesting results, he was not condemned to the 

 necessity of labouring alone. The example of the 

 preceptor inspired many of his pupils with the 

 same spirit of exertion and enterprize. Zinn, 

 Zimmerman, Caldani, and several others, ani- 

 mated by a liberal emulation, laboured with in- 

 defatigable diligence to extend and improve the 

 discoveries of their illustrious master. Thus, by 

 the combined exertions of the teacher and his stu- 

 dents, was the philosophy of animal life more 

 deeply investigated than ever before, and eventu- 

 ally placed on a basis almost entirely new. 



The effects of Haller's doctrine of irritahilitt) 

 in improving physiological and medical principles 

 must be obvious to the most superficial observer. 

 It will not be thought extravagant to say that he 

 seems to have laid the true foundation of the sci-^ 

 ence of medicine; if indeed such a foundation can 

 be said to be yet laid. From Haller, more than 

 from any single writer. Dr. Brown, and other mo- 

 dern systematic reformers, who have done most to 

 improve medical principles, seem to have borrowed 

 the torch by which they were enabled to direct 

 their progress, and to explore the obscurities of 

 their route. 



But notwithstanding Haller's felicity in ac- 

 complishing so much to aid the progress of physi- 

 ology, he did not live to witness two of the most 

 signal improvements in that science which the 

 eighteenth century can boast. He died in the year 

 1777, just about the time when a new and unex- 

 pected light began to be shed upon the functions 

 of respiration and digestion. 



