SO-CALLED INTRIGUES 
115 
Stobaeus in the early part of 1732, exchanged his 
chair of natural history for history pure and simple, 
Lund’s Consistory offered him the vacant post by a 
heavy yote, although he had not sought the appoint¬ 
ment. On this ground, Rosen demanded a higher 
salary, which the governing body readily accorded. 
What he ultimately became does not properly come in 
here, but it may be well to recall that Carl von Linne, 
Johan Ihre, Torbern Bergman, and Nils Rosen von 
Rosenstein, in the later half of the eighteenth century, 
were the most distinguished men of the University, 
the last as practising physician earning a reputation 
which still remains unfaded. 
With these facts before us, we are justified in 
asking whether it is reasonable to suppose that such 
a man should be frightened of competition in some 
future opening for a professor of medicine, with an 
unexamined, non-graduated student, who, however, 
certainly possessed for his time, wonderful knowledge 
in natural history; that he, apart from the simplest 
considerations of honour, should lend himself to 
such paltry intrigues ? This question is the more 
justified, as otherwise Rosen is always noted as pos¬ 
sessing in high degree a noble and straightforward 
personality. It cannot be overlooked that on the 
same page as Rosen is painted as the most hateful of 
the spiteful and irritating backbiters as a true deity 
of Tartarus, he is praised as a noble, peaceable man, 
possessing great amiability. 
Still another question may be put—that as in 
Uppsala there were two professors in the medical 
faculty, both being septuagenarians and past work, it 
might be hoped that both Ros£n and Linnaeus (pro¬ 
vided the latter gained his medical doctorate) would 
soon become their successors. Could it be supposed 
that Rosen should think it necessary, by a dishonour¬ 
able act, to ruin the future of a young man, whose 
eminent ability and capacity he had praised? Of 
Rosen’s contemporaries, one declared that he had 
