AUGUST WEISMANN. 



Plate A. 



(Read January i, 1915.) 



August Weismann, a foreign member of this Society, was born 

 at Frankfort on the Main, January 17, 1834, and died at Freiburg 

 in Breisgau, November 6, 1914. He early showed the traits of a 

 naturahst and in one of his books speaks of the excitement he felt 

 as a boy in catching butterflies. He attended the University of 

 Gottingen, where he studied chemistry and medicine, coming espe- 

 cially under the instruction of the distinguished anatomist Henle, 

 and receiving the degree of M.D. in 1856. After spending three 

 years at Rostock as an assistant he began the practice of medicine 

 at Frankfort and during this time he visited Vienna in 1858, Italy 

 in 1859 and Paris in i860. From 1861 to 1862 he was private 

 physician to Archduke Stephan of Austria at Schamburg Palace. 

 He then studied zoology at Giessen under the renowned zoologist 

 Leuckart and became privat-docent in zoology at the University of 

 Freiburg in 1863, where he spent the remainder of his life. In 1866 

 he was appointed professor extraor dinar ius and a few years later 

 became professor ordinarius, which position he continued to hold 

 until a few years before his death, when he was made professor 

 emeritus. 



In person he was a man of striking appearance, being about six 

 feet tall and well proportioned and having a fine head and face 

 and an earnest but kind expression of the eyes. From 1864 to 1874 

 and again from 1884 on he suffered from an eye trouble which in- 

 terfered greatly with his microscopical work and turned his atten- 

 tion to theoretical questions. One of his former students and as- 

 sistants, Professor Alexander Petrunkewitch,^ to whom I am m- 

 debted for much valuable information concerning his personality, 



1 1 am also indebted to Prof. H. H. Wilder, of Smith College, and to 

 Prof. J. S. Kingsley, of the University of Illinois, for information regarding 

 the family life and personality of Weismann. 



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