AT STOCKHOLM 
179 
Hard work was his portion, as his numerous private 
patients, and his naval duties, caused his position to 
be no sinecure. The naval hospital contained from one 
hundred to two hundred sick, demanding his care with 
only the help of two assistants. Linnaeus not only de¬ 
voted himself to consideration for the welfare of those 
committed to his care, but earnestly sought for simple 
methods of care, beginning to form a garden, chiefly 
for raising medicinal plants. At the same time he had 
opportunities for autopsy, and he became one of the 
first pathologic anatomists in his country, which led 
during his time, to great development in the medical 
faculty at Uppsala. 
Then too he had his lectures to deliver, in 1739 
and 1740, on botany and mineralogy according to the 
season. He not only spoke from his chair, but in¬ 
vited his hearers to excursions in field and meadow, 
and rich flower gardens round about. As to 
mineralogy, he remarked in early spring, that 
zoological subjects were not yet available, being still 
in their winter sleep, some in southern lands, some 
in deep waters, and some in holes and corners of 
forests. All the flowers were in their winter-quarters 
and “ were sleeping with the bears/’ The subject, 
however, drew so large an assembly when he lectured 
on the rock specimens of the Mining College, that 
Triewald’s room could hardly hold them all, to 
Linnaeus’s great surprise. 
The young Academy demanded no little time, 
especially that being the case during the first four 
months when Linnaeus was President, thus com¬ 
pelling him to do his very best in many different 
directions. Difficulties were so much the greater, as 
Sweden had not hitherto possessed such an institu¬ 
tion, consequently it had more or less to serve as a 
model. It is true that at Uppsala since 1710, there 
existed Sweden’s first scientific society, named the 
Royal Scientific Society, and the Academy had to 
form, as it were, a complement to it. The former 
