4 i8 HERMANN VON HELMHOLTZ 



that awful Chicago. We remained here four whole days, 

 because Professor Bowditch, a physiologist, had travelled a 

 long way to see your father. We drove for an hour in the 

 country to-day with his charming daughter/ 



On October 7, Helmholtz and his wife set out on the return 

 journey to Europe. Klein writes : 



4 1 can supply some details of the tragic close of the journey, 

 and Helmholtz's disastrous fall. We were sitting in the smoking- 

 room till about 10 p.m., with a perfectly calm sea, Helmholtz, 

 a young physician, Dr. Morton from Boston (son of the famous 

 Morton, who first made practical use of ether as an anaesthetic), 

 Captain Rings, and I, when Helmholtz, remarking that it was 

 time to go to bed, went down the fairly steep stairway leading 

 to the saloon. Then we heard a heavy fall, to which at the 

 moment I paid no attention, till Dr. Morton cried out, " Some- 

 thing has happened to the Geheimrath" on which we all hurried 

 below, and were in time to see Helmholtz lifted by a number of 

 stewards at the foot of the gangway, and carried into his cabin : 

 there was a pool of blood on the floor/ 



His wife writes, on board the Saale, October 14, 1893 : 



' In defiance of superstition, we embarked late on Friday, the 

 6th, started at 7 a.m. and at once got on to the edge of a cyclone 

 which stood by us all the time warm, misty, depressing. I 

 suffered unspeakably till to-day ; your father, well, energetic, and 

 particularly kind and dear about my sickness, told me on 

 Thursday, as on all the other days, what he had been talking 

 about with our nice captain, and then took Kuno Fischer's 

 Schopenhauer into the smoking-room while I lay more 

 wretched than ever. Then Professor Klein came in, and broke 

 to me that your father had fallen down the companion, and was 

 bleeding from forehead and nose, and that two doctors were 

 with him ; and then led me into the ship doctor's cabin. There 

 lay your father covered with blood, but he appeared to be con- 

 scious, and was able to answer all questions. At first they feared 

 an apoplectic stroke, which I never believed for a moment, but 

 I think one of his old and long-forgotten swoons must have 

 suddenly come upon him. Evidently he had become uncon- 

 scious before the fall, since he did not put his hands out to 

 protect himself, but fell heavily on his face/ 



At last they reached Bremen, on October 17, where Helmholtz 



