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many reasons, not the least of these being that Manchester was the 

 first town in the provinces to found a thoroughly organized and fully 

 equipped Medical School (1825) — then called the Pine Street School 

 of Medicine — the school founded by the late Mr. Thomas Turner 

 (1793-1873), in which Dalton taught Pharmaceutical Chemistry 

 (1825). 



J. E. PURKINJE. 



1787-1869. 



HE began life as a teacher, but, before doing so, took Orders. 

 The writings of Fichte influenced him much, and he decided 

 to follow medicine. He studied medicine in Prague from 

 1813, and in 1819 he became Prosector. His earliest work was 

 entitled BeitrCuje :. Kenntniss der Sehen in subjectiver Hinsicht 

 (Prag 1819). The work, dealing with subjective ocular phenomena, 

 brought him the acquaintance, friendship, and support of Goethe, 

 the result being that he obtained the Chair of Physiology and 

 Pathology in Breslau, a Prussian University, in 1823, where he 

 laboured for six-and-twenty years — founding what was, perhaps, 

 the first physiological institute in Europe — until his return, in 1850, 

 to Prague, as Professor of Physiology. 



He was amongst the first to give methodical instruction in the 

 use of the microscope for the investigation of the structure of tissues. 

 " The Institute in Breslau was the cradle of Histology." Although 

 he had a preference for the study of optical phenomena, and 

 published Beobachtungen u. Versuche d. Physiologie d. Shine (Berlin, 

 2 vols., 1823-26), he has left his mark on many other departments 

 of physiology and histology — " Purkinje's cells " of the cerebellum ; 

 " Purkinje's fibres " of the heart. He made many researches on 

 " development." In 1835, with Valentin, he published his famous 

 article on ciliary motion. In 1837, two years before Schwann, he 

 made investigations on the glands of the stomach and on gastric 

 digestion. 



His histological works deal with the skin, bone, nerve plexuses, 

 axis cylinder, ganglion cells, compressorium, double knife for sections, 

 chromate of potash, glacial acetic acid, heart fibres, muscular fibres, 

 &c. An account of his scientific as well as his literary works will 

 be found in the Almanack d. k. Akad. d. Wiss. (Wien 1870), and the 

 story of his later years in the Life of J. N. Czermak, by Anton Springer. 



