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Leyden one who has been called the " Father of experimental 

 physiology" viz., A. von Haller. He was born at Berne in 

 1708. 



The precocity of the youth, the versatility of his talents, and his 

 extensive acquirements, while apparently fitting him for any profession, 

 rendered the choice of a career somewhat difficult. Fortunately he 

 had a bias towards medicine, and in 1723 he decided to study at 

 Tubingen. As showing the influence of Boerhaave on Haller, who 

 had used his " Institutes " recommended by one of his teachers — 

 Duvernoi — Haller, in 1725, went direct to Leyden to continue his 

 studies under the master himself at a time when Boerhaave was in the 

 full plenitude of his powers. There also he sat under B. Albinus 

 (primus), and had as a fellow -student F. B. Albinus, who succeeded 

 his father as Professor of Anatomy in 1745. Doubtless also he 

 learned something from the already aged Ruysch. He took his M.D. 

 in Leyden in 1727, and then spent some time in travel, visiting 

 England, and then Paris, where he made the acquaintance of 

 Winslow, the Professor of Anatomy. He next returned to Basel 

 in 1728, where he devoted a considerable amount of time to the muses 

 and to botany, studying under Bernouilli. In 1730 (ajt. 22) he 

 returned to his native city, where he practised medicine, studied 

 and taught anatomy (from 1734) until 1736, when George II., as 

 Elector of Hanover, offered him a Chair of Anatomy, Surgery, and 

 Botany, in the newly founded University of Gottingen — an offer 

 which he accepted. He met with an accident on the way, and his wife 

 was fatally injured. 



In Gottingen he laboured seventeen years, chiefly at physiology, 

 where he had Zinn as a pupil, returning to Berne in 1753, where he 

 lived and wrote for nearly another quarter of a century, publishing in 

 1757 the first volume of his Elementa Physiologies, and the last or eighth 

 volume in 1765. This great compendium marks the beginning of 

 modern physiology. His industry must have been immense, for every 

 page bristles with references to preceding works, and the work itself may 

 be taken as comprising the fullest embodiment and representation 

 of all that had been taught in physiology up to that time. Careful 

 anatomical descriptions are followed by physiological expositions and 

 then on both a critical judgment with suggestions as to what is required 

 to complete the picture. His chief claim to glory is his Elementa, 

 which contains all the facts, theories, and bibliographical references of 

 preceding observers. His knowledge was encyclopaedic, his tastes 

 catholic, his aspiratious poetical, and he was supremely devout withal. 



On the death of Dillenius, he was invited to occupy the Chair of 

 Botany at Oxford, but declined. 



Like his master Boerhaave, and like Harvey, and so many more 

 of the fraternity, he was a martyr to gout. Sincerely devout, and 



