70 
A  Pilgrimage  to  Briinn. 
t  Am.  Jour.  Pharm. 
(    February,  1915. 
name  of  their  original  discoverer,  Gregor  Mendel,  though  he  died 
in  1884  wholly  unconscious  of  the  esteem  and  homage  the  whole 
world  would  one  day  bestow  upon  him. 
Having  myself  had  a  share  in  establishing  the  truth  of  Mendel's 
laws  and  in  demonstrating  their  applicability  to  different  classes  of 
organisms,  it  was  but  natural  that  Briinn  should  appeal  to  me  as  a 
Mecca  when,  in  1908,  I  was  given  the  opportunity  to  visit  the  vari- 
ous plant-breeding  establishments  and  experimental  students  of 
heredity  in  Europe.  As  no  experimental  work  is  now  being  carried 
on  at  Briinn,  my  sole  motive  in  going  there  was  the  motive  which 
actuates  all  true  pilgrims — a  desire  to  tread  the  ground  made  sacred 
by  the  labors  of  a  man  of  heroic  mould  who  has  performed  a  great 
service  in  the  cause  of  truth  and  humanity. 
It  was  early  morning  of  the  5th  of  November,  1908,  when  I  left 
the  Victoria  Hotel,  Dresden,  and  hastened  to  the  magnificent  Bahn- 
hof,  or  station,  to  take  the  train  for  Briinn,  and  it  was  already  too 
dark  to  see  clearly  the  character  of  the  country  we  were  passing 
through  when  I  landed  at  my  destination  in  the  evening.  It  was  in 
many  respects  a  delightful  trip,  as  we  followed  the  course  of  the 
beautiful  Elbe  River  as  far  as  Prag,  Austria,  and  then  cut  across 
the  water-shed  nearly  due  eastward  into  the  valley  of  a  small  trib- 
utary of  the  Danube,  thus  providing  a  wide  diversity  of  scenery  to 
feast  the  traveller's  eyes,  and  prevent  the  long  journey  from  becom- 
ing unduly  monotonous. 
I  had  heard  so  often  of  the  "  obscurity  "  of  the  city  in  which 
Mendel  had  lived  and  worked,  and  in  the  Annals  of  whose  scientific 
society  he  had  published  the  account  of  his  researches,  that  I  was 
not  prepared  to  find  Briinn  a  busy  city  of  a  hundred  thousand  inhab- 
itants, and  so  full  of  high  schools,  colleges,  and  other  institutions 
of  learning  that  it  took  me  a  half  <iay  to  find  a  particular  Royal 
Technical  High  School  of  which  I  had  unfortunately  forgotten  a 
part  of  the  distinctive  title.  At  this  High  School  I  was  to  meet  the 
Professor  of  Botany,  Doctor  Hugo  litis,  the  secretary  of  a  com- 
mittee (of  which  I  also  was  a  member)  which  was  making  prepara- 
tion for  the  erection  of  a  suitable  memorial  to  Mendel — a  work 
which  has  since  been  consummated,  as  already  mentioned.  I  had 
communicated  with  Doctor  litis,  and  was  depending  upon  him  to 
escort  me  to  the  Monastery  and  act  as  guide.  When,  after  a  weary- 
ing search  from  one  High  School  to  another,  until  no  less  than  six 
had  been  visited  in  vain,  I  at  last  arrived  at  my  goal  in  the  old  part 
