196 EIGHTEENTH CENTURY. pt. hi. 



at his dissecting dead bodies, he went to Berne, where he 

 became professor of anatomy; and in 1736, when George 

 II. of England, who was also Elector of Hanover, founded 

 the University of Gottingen, he went there as professor of 

 anatomy, surgery, and botany, and soon made that Univer- 

 sity as famous as Boerhaave had made Leyden. 



One of his first reforms was to turn the work of his pupils 

 to good account. When medical students are going to pass 

 their last examination they are required to write an essay, or 

 thesis, as it is called, before they can receive their degree of 

 doctor. Haller used always at these times to propose to 

 each one of his students some difficult point in anatomy or 

 physiology, in which he thought new discoveries might be 

 made, and he then drew out a plan for them and showed 

 them how to begin. By this means their essays were often 

 full of new and useful information, and it was a great deal 

 owing to the help of his pupils that Haller was able to 

 publish 180 volumes on science, all more or less valuable. 



There was also a very good anatomical theatre at 

 Gottingen, and from dissections made there Haller produced 

 a set of most beautiful anatomical drawings, which he pub- 

 lished between 1743 and 1753. You will remember that 

 Vesalius published many fine engravings of parts of the 

 human body (see p. 67), and since his time many others 

 had been made, especially by Haller's master, Albinus. But 

 Vesalius' drawings were coarse, because he had no micro- 

 scope to help him, and Albinus had only drawn separate 

 parts, such as a muscle, a nerve, or a vein. Haller's plates 

 were the first which showed the different nerves and vessels 

 attached in their right position, and to each plate he added 

 a complete history of the ftmction, or use of the parts 

 drawn. He made these drawings so accurate, and spent so 



