EARLY STUDENT YEARS 
29 
however, died on die 27th June, 1727, wherefore Rud- 
beck during the succeeding years gave a few lectures, 
after which he was accorded an extension of his 
release from duty, that he might “ apply all the rest 
of his time to completing that philological work, upon 
which he had been labouring many years, and that 
Medical Adjunct Nils Rosen, should receive the com¬ 
mission to enter upon the forenamed subject as 
deputy.” The latter, at the time when Linnaeus came 
to Uppsala, was travelling abroad, and, in his stead, 
Elias Preutz officiated, acting as deputy during a 
part of Linnaeus’s early studentship. Preutz said of 
himself, that in Rosen’s duties he fulfilled his func¬ 
tions with all diligence to the satisfaction of the 
medical professors, but neither Rudbeck nor the 
medical students shared that view. How far this 
influenced Linnaeus’s career will be set out in the 
following narrative. 
One of the two ordinary professors in the medical 
faculty was, as previously stated, Lars Roberg, a more 
than usually gifted man, but who, at the time when 
Linnaeus arrived, was almost sixty-five years of age, 
consequently no longer possessing the strength and 
perseverance necessary for the discharge of his 
weighty and extensive duties in a satisfactory manner. 
Besides his peculiar temperament, he had a fiery 
genius, spoke with special politeness, was an enter¬ 
taining companion, and full of quaint ideas, but with 
these brilliant powers he combined a curious method 
of living. In his old age he stretched still further 
his contempt for any other than a rich competency, 
which he loved more to possess than to enjoy. With 
his uncommon powers he seemed moreover to have 
greatly withdrawn himself from the prosecution of 
his duties, in that he gave private—and less valuable 
—lectures, from which he could expect economic 
advantage. 
Neither of the medical professors can be acquitted 
from the charge of waning energy in teaching, but on 
