8 
The other professor above alluded to was OLOF 
RUDBECK, the Younger, a very gifted and learned man, 
indeed, but one who had been drawn away from his 
researches and teaching in natural history by his great 
interest in language study; thus, for the first three years 
of ARTEDI'S undergraduateship RUDBECK was, as a matter 
of fact, entirely inactive in his prescribed department, 
on account of his being engaged in scientific inquiries 
in the domain of philology. On resuming his profess- 
orial duties in 1727, at the age of 67, he gave a two- 
year course of lectures on the Birds of Sweden, and 
ARTEDI was then among his auditors. 
From the above-related facts it will be abundantly 
clear that the natural science student in ARTEDI'S day 
must have been very largely dependent upon his own 
private studies for the knowledge he wanted to acquire; 
the university staff was not in a position to afford him 
more than the most meagre assistance. LINNAEUS com- 
ments upon this total want of facilities for natural science 
study as follows: -- "RUDBECK gave a course, certainly, 
about his Birds of Sweden, which by the way are clev- 
erly drawn, and ROBERG lectured privately on the Prob- 
lemata of ARISTOTELES in the light of the principles of 
DESCARTES, but no one heard or saw any Anatomy, nor 
anyone any Chemistry; I myself never had the oppor- 
tunity of attending a single lecture on Botany, either 
private or public". In spite of these untoward circum- 
stances ARTEDI applied himself with great assiduity to 
his science, and thanks to his good parts he was soon 
accounted one of the most promising of the students in 
the Medical Faculty, as is, moreover, proved by the 
incident related below. 
LINN^US, on arriving in Upsala in the year 1728 
for the purpose of taking up natural science study there, 
made inquiries as to what men were already engaged 
in the same kind of work, that he might perchance 
make their acquaintance and so obtain some guidance 
that would facilitate his own"*progress in learning. On 
all hands he was informed that PETRUS ARCT^DIUS was 
