80 HAECKEL 



The history of Haeckel's medical doctorate can 

 be written in a few plain and touching lines. After 

 receiving his degree he was sent by his prudent 

 father, to keep him away from crabs and other 

 monsters of the deep, to Vienna for a term, to do 

 hospital work under Oppolzer, Skoda, Hebra, and 

 Siegmund. All that we find recorded of this term 

 is that his old love of botany revived in earnest. 

 Immense quantities of dwarf Alpine plants were 

 collected. When the traveller passed by the spot 

 twenty-four years afterwards on a quiet autumn 

 Sunday, on his way to take ship at Trieste for the 

 tropical forests and giant trees of Ceylon, the 

 memory of Schneeberg and the Eose-Alp came 

 upon him like a dream. However, the hospital 

 work, together with a short span of cramming in 

 the winter at Berlin, must have had some effect, 

 as he passed the State-examination in medicine. 

 In March, 1858, he was a ^* practising physician." 

 He had in his hand the crown of prudent ambition 

 — and he felt like a poor captive. There was one 

 source of consolation — Johannes Miiller. While 

 one was near him there was a possibility of more 

 real work. He discussed with him the plan of 

 the study of the development of the gregarinae 

 (parasitic protozoa), which he wanted to conduct 

 in Miiller's laboratory in the summer of 1858. 

 Then he was stricken, like so many others, with 

 the thunderbolt of the news of Miiller's sudden 

 death, on April 28th of the same year. What 

 must he do now? He began to practise. It is 

 said on his own authority that he fixed the hours 



