November 12, 190S] 



NA 7 URE 



of England, who was establishing a university at 

 Gottingen, induced Haller to accept the chair of 

 medicine, surgery, anatomy, and botany. He there 

 gave himself up entirely to professorial duties and 

 to work in natural science. He was instrumental 

 in founding, in 1737, the Royal Society of Sciences 

 in Gottingen, of which he became secretary and presi- 

 dent, and the first meetings of which were held in 

 his house. After seventeen years in Gottingen he 

 accepted the invitation of his fellow-citizens to return 

 to Berne, where already, in his absence, he had been 

 elected a member of the Supreme Council, and he 

 now (1753) devoted himself to administrative duties 

 with the same energy that he had put into literary 

 and scientific studies. These studies were not, how- 

 ever, arrested, for every moment of his time un- 

 occupied by public affairs continued to be filled in 

 by them, and his activity in this respect ended only 

 with his death in 1777. He even sent a detailed 

 account of his last illness to the Royal Society of 

 Gottingen, and is said to have remarked to his 

 physician at the approach of death that his pulse 

 was no longer perceptible : — " Es schlagt nicht 

 mehr ! " 



Haller is justlv celebrated as a botanist, and had 

 he not been a contemporary of Linnseus, whose great 

 reputation eclipsed that of all his fellow-workers, he 

 might have attained as high a position in that science 

 as he reached in anatomy and physiology. He pre- 

 pared a complete flora of Switzerland, and propounded 

 a svstem of classification — artificial, it is true (as 

 was that of Linnaeus), but one which might have 

 served a useful purpose in the absence of the Linnsan 

 system. He published several important botanical 

 works, the chief being the " Historia stirpium indi- 

 genarum Helvetiae," which appeared in 1768 in three 

 folio volumes with one volume of plates; the " Biblio- 

 theca botanica," 1771-2, in two quarto volumes; the 

 " Histoire des Plantes venc^neuses de la Suisse," 1776, 

 and several descriptive monographs. 



As an anatomist Haller was still more eminent. 

 .\lreadv in 1733 he published at Berne a " Dissertatio 

 anatomica de musculis diaphragmatis," followed in 

 1738, at Gottingen, bv another, " De Valvula 

 Eustachii." In 1743 he began the publication of his 

 great work, the " Icones anatomies," which ap- 

 peared in eight successive folio parts, the last in 1756. 

 This was the first anatomical work in which the 

 org.-ms of the bodv are shown as much as possible 

 in relation to one another, a principle which has been 

 followed by all subsequent authors. As accessory to 

 his anatomical writings may be mentioned his con- 

 tributions to development and pathology. 



But it is as a phvsiologist that Haller unquestion- 

 ably ranks highest — indeed, modern physiology may 

 be said to date from the appearance of his great 

 work, " Elementa physiologiee corporis humani," 

 which came out from 1757-1766 in eight quarto 

 volumes.^ Into this book he collected all the physio- 

 logical knowledge of his time, and the clearness with 

 which he narrates the facts of physiology and the 

 logical manner in which he draws deductions from 

 them mav serve as a model for modern text-books. 

 His manner of pursuing a theme and clinching his 

 conclusions is shown even by the mere titles of his 

 chapters. Thus, in the section of the book in which 

 he deals with the history of the discovery of the 

 circulation and the attempts which had been made 

 to detract from the claims of Harvey to the merit of 



1 "The year 1757 may be regarded . . . as indicating the dividing line 

 between modern physiology and all that went before. It was the year in 

 which the 'Elementa Phvsiologlse ' of Haller was published." Michael 

 Foster, " History of Physiology," p. 204. 



NO. 2037, VOL, 79] 



the discovery, these titles read in succession as 

 follows : — 



XXIV. " Harveio laus circuitus invent! vindicatur." 

 XXV. " Non e.xstat apud Hippocratem." XXVI. 

 " Neque apud Salomonem, Platonem, veteres alios." 

 XXVII. " Neque apud Servetum, Jacobum Reeff 

 (longe minus)." XXVIII. " Quid Csesalpinus viderit 

 (non penitus tamen verum vidit, Harveio reservatum)." 

 XXIX. " Non est inventum Pauli Sarpi." XXX. 

 " Neque aliorum nuperorum." XXXI. " Neque 

 Sinensium aut Persarum." XXXII. " Sed Harvei." 

 For every statement the authority is given. Wherever 

 possible, an observation is confirmed by himself. The 

 descriptions of physiological phenomena are concise 

 and clear. The deductions are not always those which 

 we are now in the habit of drawing, but the excep- 

 tions are singularly rare. 



It was only the dawning of chemistry, and many 

 branches of phvsics were unknown; physiology. 



therefore, in those days had to be based mainly upon 

 the study of anatomy. " Physiologise est animata 

 anatome," says Haller in his " Primee linea; physio- 

 logiae in usum pra^lectionuni academicorum," ahtt'e 

 handbook for medical students, published at Gdttingen 

 in 1748, which went through eleven editions. In the 

 same work (p. 41) he recognises the value of animal 

 experiments in advancing the knowledge of human 

 physiology : — " Accuratiora sunt quae in vivis ani- 

 malibus facta sunt experimenta," and he is even more 

 emphatic on this point in the introduction to his 

 " Elementa." 



When it is stated that Haller published nearly 200 

 works, it must be admitted that few or none have 

 possessed a more fertile literary ability, especially 

 when the scope of many of these works is taken into 

 consideration. For, besides the great tomes on 

 botany, physiology, and anatomy already mentioned, 



