836 
LINNAEUS 
weeps, can speak only three or four words, but listens 
to all.” And A. Afzelius adds : “ All his limbs and 
organs, the tongue especially, the lower extremities, 
and his bladder, were paralyzed. His speech was 
unconnected, and sometimes unintelligible. With¬ 
out the help of others, he cannot stir from the place 
where he sits or lies, cannot dress himself, eat, or 
carry out the least thing he wishes. Of his organic 
life, only his respiration, digestion, and circulation 
are yet in tolerably good state. Everything else is 
more or less destroyed. He had forgotten his own 
name, and mostly seems to be unconscious of both 
absence and presence. For a few short periods 
here and there, his power of thought returned, as 
when he found lying near him some books of botani¬ 
cal or zoological contents, even his own, of which 
he would turn the leaves with evident pleasure, and 
let it be understood that he would think himself 
happy if he could have been the author of such useful 
works.” 
The summer of 1777, which he spent at Hammarby, 
seems to have brought some improvement. He was 
carried out every day when the weather permitted, 
either in the garden or to his museum, where he would 
enjoy himself for hours together with the sight of the 
treasures there, to his great satisfaction, and was 
carried back again. He came back in the autumn to 
Uppsala, with better health, so that he could walk 
several steps supported by another person, and smoke 
his pipe with enjoyment. By the physician’s orders, 
during fine weather, he drove out to obtain fresh air, 
but the coachman was strictly forbidden to drive out¬ 
side the town. Once in December when sleighing, he 
ordered the servant to drive him the three miles to 
Safja, and the man thought he was bound to obey his 
master’s repeated orders. When the accustomed time 
of his return home passed, the family became very 
uneasy, and sent out messengers in every direction to 
seek for him. He was at last found at Safja, where 
