212 
LINNiEUS 
animals, the attendance fell to twenty, yet when the 
lectures dealt with the system of diseases, or the 
philosophy of botany, the auditors rose to fifty or 
sixty. Still greater numbers came when natural 
history, especially zoology, was discussed; but without 
contradiction, the most attractive subject was dietary. 
For instance, in the spring terms of 1748 and 1756, 
the numbers were respectively 144 and 101, but 
Linnaeus declared that he had double the audience 
than the stated figures, and that at a time when the 
total number of students at Uppsala did not exceed 
600. The highest figures seem to have been reached 
in 1760, with no fewer than 239 students on the list, 
probably due to the Pomeranian war (the students 
being immune from conscription), and at its height, 
reached 1,500. 
It is not so easy to determine the number of those 
who took part in the coaching lectures; only for the 
spring terms in 1748 and 1754 can accurate figures 
be supplied, respectively 165 and 88, but one of his 
pupils relates that late comers had to stand in the 
lobby, because of the crowd. Although during the 
whole of his career, the entire number of matriculations 
in the medical faculty amounted only to 344, alto¬ 
gether his pupils must have reached many thousands. 
This flourishing state of things was due to many 
coincident causes. The long period when this subject 
was treated by aged professors, created an impulse at 
this time when it was handled by Linnaeus, with his 
lively and pleasant teaching. A brother professor, 
D. Melanderhjelm, relates that botany was presented 
as a new and unknown thing, and the fashion was to 
run after a new subject. To see a flower from the 
Cape or from Asia, monkeys and snakes from Africa, 
and parrots from South America, in Sweden, was to 
see a miracle, which no one but Linnaeus could show. 
The book of Nature had till now been closed to the 
students who came up for divinity or classical 
languages; but through Linnaeus’s teaching, obscurity 
