LAST STUDENT YEARS 
95 
medical books, with physical and chemical instru¬ 
ments and stones. The upper part of a corner was 
occupied with tree-branches, with thirty different 
kinds of tame fowl, and in the window stood big pots 
of rare plants. Besides, one had the opportunity of 
seeing his collection of dried plants pasted on paper, 
all collected in Sweden, and amounting to more than 
three thousand kinds, wild or cultivated, to which 
must be added the Lapland rarest plants also dried 
and pressed. Furthermore were a thousand species 
of insects, and about as many of Swedish minerals, 
placed on wide shelves and in the most pleasing way 
arranged after Linnaeus’s own system, founded in 
accordance with his observations.” 
That this magnificence should attract pupils is 
quite natural. This term he taught not only general 
botany, but also dietetics, a science which he believed 
he had himself found to be built hitherto on fallacious 
principles, and therefore needed to be reformed. As 
a foundation for this he drew up his “ Diasta 
naturalis,” with seventy-five rules, after an introduc¬ 
tion in which preceding authors were severely judged. 
Of his predecessors he considered Sanctorius the only 
one worthy of note, the others being Hippocrates, 
Celsus, Hoffman, Boerhaave, and six hundred others 
whose writings on diet (with so many rules for health 
that they cannot be reckoned) only proved the truth 
that “ medice vivere est pessime vivere ” [to live by 
medicine is to live horribly]. The reason is, that 
doctors have taken mankind as possessing the 
machinery of clockwork, not recognizing that he is an 
intelligent animal. So if you would live long, live 
as an animal of your kind should, especially in our 
country. 
A Swede builds like an Italian; 
,, takes snuff like-a Spaniard; 
,, dresses like a Frenchman; 
,, eats like an Englishman; 
