XV 



as well as his dissection class. On chemistry, his favourite subject, 

 there were no lectures during the first term, and in the second term he 

 did not attend them, because Professor Wurzer had wounded his 

 youthful feelings of ambition. To the very great annoyance of the 

 mistress of the house where he lived, he had again turned his room 

 into a laboratory, and had begun to make experiments on sulpho- 

 cyanides and other compounds. He discovered iodide of cyanogen, at 

 least it was to him a discovery, as he was not aware that Davy had 

 already found it. In the joy of his heart he told Professor Wurzer of 

 it, but the latter, instead of studying this substance, as new to him as 

 it was to young Wohler, reproached the youth bitterly that he, a 

 student, should be on the look-out for discoveries, instead of attending 

 to his medical studies. Through Dr. Buch these little researches were 

 afterwards published in Gilbert's " Annalen." 



At the end of a year Wohler went to the University of Heidelberg, 

 full of enthusiasm, even in anticipation, for Leopold Gmelin, who from 

 this time forth was his favourite teacher as well as kindest friend and 

 counsellor, Wohler wished above all to hear Gmelin's chemical 

 lectures, but Gmelin thought this would be a waste of time, and thus 

 it came about that Wohler never attended any course of chemical 

 lectures. He gained, however, all the more by personal intercourse 

 with Gmelin and the opportunity of working in his laboratory. He 

 devoted to chemistry nearly all the time which h;s medical studies 

 left him, and even towards the end of these studies, when practical 

 medical work took up nearly the whole of his time, it seemed quite a 

 necessity to him to go daily to the laboratory at least once. It was 

 here that he had begun his investigation of cyanic acid, of which the 

 earliest account had been published in Gilbert's "Annalen." It was 

 to him a great gain that at this period Gmelin and Tiedemann were 

 working at their joint chemical and physiological researches. Wohler 

 also enjoyed the special favour of Tiedemann, and owed to this excel- 

 lent man his lively interest in physiology. It may have been partly 

 due to the influence of Tiedemann that Wohler undertook to write an 

 essay, in competition for a prize offered by the medical faculty, on 

 the passage of substances into the urine, for which purpose he per- 

 formed numerous experiments, partly on himself, but mostly on dogs. 

 He was so fortunate as to gain the prize. Though he might have 

 made use of this treatise for a dissertation, he preferred that it should 

 be published in Tiedemann's " Zeitschrift fur Physiologie," 1824. 



However, Wohler's primary object was still to become a medical 

 man, and latterly his inclination to this profession was increased by 

 the closer acquaintance with its practical side which he gained in the 

 clinical visits. He was more especially attracted by the midwifery 

 cases, for which Nagele had a gift of interesting his pupils. Assuming 

 that they would prefer this branch of practice to all others, JNagele 



