STUDENT LIFE 21 



only mean a higher or lower mark. W. and F., who were 

 a term ahead of me, have also been in now; and had the 

 same good fortune. Although none of us ever went up to an 

 examination with better consciences than to this anatomy, we 

 were all on thorns over the demonstrations, especially in the 

 first public one, where we each had to give a full description 

 of the tissues in one of the body-cavities, selected by lot, before 

 a crowd of other students, who all arrived on the scene owing 

 to some alteration of arrangements in the examination. The 

 examiners, M tiller and Gurlt, sat there they yawned and 

 looked horribly bored. The second demonstration, on a pre- 

 paration of bone, and one of intestine preserved in spirit, 

 came off before the examiners alone, when they were even 

 more bored, and only too pleased if the candidate in his haste 

 omitted something. At the end we only regretted that we had 

 spent so much labour over our anatomy, and tried to reassure 

 the crowd who are still trembling at the idea of it.' 



As soon as the second part of the examination was over, 

 Helmholtz was free to plunge into the independent scientific 

 work he thirsted for. His visits to Potsdam became less 

 frequent, the letters to his parents fewer, and he was already 

 considering the subject of his doctor's thesis. The winter 

 session of 1840-1, and the summer of 1841, were devoted to the 

 extension of his knowledge on all sides, more particularly in 

 mathematics and recondite branches of mechanics. Still he 

 always found time and opportunity to take part in amateur 

 theatricals with his friends, and he followed the growth of 

 national feeling and consequent political developments with 

 keen interest. The witty lampoons and satires with which the 

 Berliners revenged themselves for their deluded hopes, after 

 the accession of Frederick William IV, were a perpetual source 

 of amusement to him. 



Hardly, however, had he embarked on the anatomical and 

 physiological researches that were to serve for his doctor's 

 thesis, when he was prostrated for several months by a severe 

 attack of typhoid fever. He was able to return to Berlin in the 

 winter of 1841, and once more took up the question suggested 

 to him (that is, in a general sense) by his master Johannes Miiller. 

 From this time he lived entirely in the circle of M tiller's pupils, 

 since he had already formed a friendship with the physiologists 



