28 
HELEN ABBOTT MICHAEL 
with his library and its rare books, its walls beautifully tinted, 
its frieze with the Aristotelian elements — air, earth, fire, and 
water—represented in it, and in each corner the arms of the 
doctor and his wife; the ceiling in blue and gold, a large sun 
in the centre and around in squares the alchemistic symbols, 
the inlaid floor, beautifully polished, and the motto on the 
wall end of the room, so suitable for a chemist: “Thou hast 
ordered all things in measure and number and weight.” 
She chronicles meeting Sir William Crookes, who remarked 
that her Yucca essay “was a model of a good scientific paper.” 
Professor Leech, of Owens College, who had written a notice 
of her Yucca paper for the Manchester “ Chronicle,” “was ad¬ 
mirably polite” and showed her over the college, the museum 
where were “glass cases fitted with drugs in jars labeled,” 
and the laboratories with their convenient arrangements 
for students. She was particularly interested in Professor 
Leech’s method of showing the effect of drugs in destroying 
nerve-fibres and the “immense effects of impurities in drugs 
on tissue.” 
At a reception at the college, she met a number of distin¬ 
guished scientists, Springer, Newcomb, Dewar, Professor Arm¬ 
strong, of London, as well as Ladenburg and Lothar Meyer 
of Germany. At the luncheon of sandwiches and champagne 
that was served, she had some chance to talk with the Ger¬ 
mans. She asked their advice about studying in Germany, 
but was informed that there was no chance of her gaining 
admission as a private student in Kiel or Tübingen, and per¬ 
haps not in Germany. She says: — 
“They gave me cards of introduction to Dorpat and Leipsic. 
Ladenburg is accomplishing syntheses of alkaloids. He said 
he would never come to America. His wife would not let him 
go without her and she had to rest with the children.” 
After a few weeks in England, the record of which seems 
to have disappeared, Miss Abbott sailed first to Christiania 
and then to Sweden, and one of her first experiences in Stock¬ 
holm brought her into acquaintance with the famous Nor¬ 
wegian poet and dramatist, Henrik Ibsen. Her description 
of the reception where she met him deserves to be preserved: — 
