112 
LINNAEUS 
Finally the minutes of a meeting of the 25th 
November, 1734, show that the Curator proposed that 
their countryman and senior student of medicine, Carl 
Linnaeus, should be awarded a testimonial. The vote 
was carried with the good wishes of all for his 
success. 
With this the sketch of Linnaeus’s student life is 
closed, and in some respects it would be superfluous 
to add more. In most biographies, an important 
place is given to the so-called intrigues and perse¬ 
cutions with which he had to contend while at Uppsala, 
and to the bitterness which was thereby kindled in his 
mind and wellnigh ruined him. It is therefore need¬ 
ful to dwell shortly upon these occurrences. Most 
biographers also supply more or less dark reports, 
without giving the facts on which they rely; others 
are so contradictory, that one refutes the other. We 
may take, however, what is written by E. M. C. Pontin, 
who took the task of unmasking these jealous perse¬ 
cutors of the young student. A lecture was given to 
an important audience in 1849, and afterwards pub¬ 
lished in the “ Aftonposten,” in which he states: 
“ It was poverty that hitherto had hindered Lin¬ 
naeus in his work, which now was interrupted by envy. 
One became aware that the young and unnoticed 
Linnaeus threatened to surpass those of privileged 
merit. This was sufficient for pettiness, ill-will, and 
intrigues, and their instrument was Nils Rosen. 
“To drive Linnaeus from the teacher’s chair which 
he so worthily filled, Rosen wove a web of cabals 
wherewith to entangle influential people in the 
capital. These means succeeding, Linnaeus was 
forbidden to give lectures on the ground that he had 
not undergone valid examination; and never did 
outcry achieve a more brilliant triumph. Linnaeus 
was crushed. On the first realization of the methods 
employed to ruin him, and under the first impulse of 
a righteous wrath, Linnaeus tried to draw his sword 
on Rosen, to redress, according to the custom of the 
