THE 
LIFE AND DOCTRINES 
OF 
HALLER. THE 
LIFE AND DOCTRINES 
OP 
HALLER. 
AY AYYIYERSARY ADDRESS 
BEFORE THE 
KINGS COUNTY MEDICAL SOCIETY, 
BY 
R CKESSON STILES, M. D. 
NEW YORK: 
r R I N T E D BY C . A . A L V 0 R D , ; 
15 YANDEWATER STREET. 
1867. ADDRESS. 
Mr. President and Gentlemen :— 
Aware of the long existence, in the history of our organization, 
of the custom, the observance of which finds me before you 
(O-night, and mindful of the honorable example of my predeces- 
sors in office; charged with the vindication of the old rights 
and sound principles of Rational Medicine in the midst of a com- 
munity of such rapid accretion, that it is in greater danger than 
others of firmer stability, of giving to false science a position 
and importance to which it is not entitled ; in a commonwealth 
whose laws, in the name of the most perfect freedom, protect even 
the grossest empiricism in depredating upon the lives and health 
of simple and unwary citizens ; and, at a time when the profession 
is the object of unusually virulent animadversion, how shall I best 
fulfill, although at best unworthily, the duty of the hour ? Not by 
laudation of ourselves, nor crimination, however just, of our oppo- 
nents ; not by scientific abstractions, nor yet by unscientific and 
unauthoritative arguments; but by appeals to pure and lofty 
example ; to such example as is truly worthy of admiration, and, x 
as far as possible, of imitation. 
From the bed-side of suffering, and round of hospital and 
clinique; from the inspection of haunts of disease (a duty at 
length fully recognized); from poring over symptoms and reme- 
dies, anxious possibilities and probabilities of life and death, we 
must all turn with pleasurable anticipation to mark the career 
of one of the heroes of our science, and review his character, 
deeds, and influence, where the character is one of exalted worth ; 
where the deeds surpass almost the possibilities of mental activity; 
and where, above all, we may draw from the example afforded 
useful lessons for our own guidance, and inspire respect and affec- 
tion for the calling which we represent. t 4 
I ask your attention, therefore, •while I dwell upon the life and 
teachings of Albert Haller, Anatomist, Physiologist, Botanist, 
Legislator, Philosopher, the accomplished Physician, and 
distinguished Teacher of Medicine. I have not sought a theme 
which might afford attractions of romance, of striking vicissi- 
tudes of fortune, of fierce contests and brilliant victories ; but 
rather of zeal for truth, of unwearying industry, and of Christian 
integrity, guiding a life of honor, culminating in the loftiest fame. 
I would take for my endeavor Haller’s own chosen device, that of 
a mariner’s compass with the motto—“ Error non abstulit fidem’’ 
—(trust in spite of aberration),—and ask your indulgence for the 
manner in which my design has been fulfilled amid the labors of 
public service and of professional occupation. The theme, 
although of special interest to us as physicians, will not, I trust, 
prove unwelcome to our guests. 
Lord Bacon, in his Organnm, treats of three kinds of ambition— 
“ First, that of men who are anxious to enlarge their own power 
in their country, wLich is a vulgar and degenerate kind ; next, 
that of men who strive to enlarge the power and empire of their 
country over mankind, which is more dignified, but not less 
covetous; but if one were to endeavor to renew and enlarge the 
power and empire of mankind in general over the universe, such 
ambition (if it may be so termed) is both more sound and more 
noble than the other two.” Eminent in the last of the three 
classes of men here designated, is the great man whose history 
we are about to study. 
Although Haller has been called the “ Father of Physiology,” 
—(the science of life-action),—because, finding its study in bad 
repute among men of sound learning, on account of the mass of 
whimsicalities and absurdities which encumbered its few solid 
acquisitions, he resolved to lift it out of its degradation and set its 
basis upon observation and experiment, and, as far as lay in the 
power of a single mind, nobly accomplished his purpose, leaving 
in the “ Elementa Physiologiae ” the model and foundation of all 
future advancement in his favorite science, in spite of this, his 
works are little known ; but few libraries in the country contain 
any of the more elaborate of his voluminous endowments of medi- 
cine, as I infer from the result of my own researches; the phy- 
siologists of the present day too often pass him by without men- 
tion; his greatest works have never been translated from the ori- 5 
ginal Latin. Although his influence is fairly acknowledged in shap- 
ing the method and direction of physiological inquiry, his authority 
is not sought on specific questions in proportion to its worth. 
No man is what he is by accident or chance. An inherited organ- 
ization is molded by surrounding physical, mental, and moral 
influences into a corresponding character. The problem is an 
intricate one, and very often baffles solution when we seek to 
trace each factor of character, among other factors, into its legiti- 
mate product in the individual constitution, but it is a study well 
worth the pursuit. 
Haller was born at Berne, in Switzerland, in 1708. With the 
very name of his native land our boyhood has been taught heroic 
associations. The city of his nativity is situated on a lofty prom- 
ontory, nearly surrounded by the river Aar, and is the capital 
of the Canton of the same name, long the most powerful of the 
Swiss confederation, and of the confederacy itself. The follow- 
ing description truly characterizes the impression which it makes 
upon the traveler among Europe’s ancient cities:— 
“ It is a republic, yet it looks kingly. Something of a Roman 
majesty appears in its lofty terraces, in those massy arches on 
each side of the streets, in the abundance of water flowing night 
and day into gigantic basins, in the magnificent avenues of trees. 
The very silence and absence of bustle, a certain stateliness and 
reserved demeanor in the inhabitants, by showing it not to be a 
money-making town, implies that its wealth springs from more 
solid and permanent sources than trade can afford, and that 
another spirit animates its inhabitants. Luxury at Berne seems 
wholly directed to objects of public utility; by the side of those 
gigantic terraces, of those fine fountains and noble shades, you see 
none but simple and solid dwellings, yet scarcely any beggarly 
ones.” * * “ Zurich suggests the idea of a municipal aristo- 
cracy ; Berne, of a warlike one ; there we think we see citizens of 
a town transformed into nobility; here, nobles who have made 
themselves citizens.” 
And how shall we measure the influence upon a sensitive 
ization of the grandeur and beauty of nature in that favored 
region ! From the walls of Berne the valley of the Aar stretched 
towards the mountains, inclosing the beautiful lakes of Thun and 
Brientz, and terminated by the giant peaks of the Bernese Ober- 
land. Scenes which the tourist paints in his most glowing colors, and treasures in bis memory for a life-long delight, were 
Haller’s familiar haunts. Here, where Nature reveals herself 
in such “ forms of majesty divine,” can we wonder that she 
should find devout worshipers and an unbroken succession of 
high priests, from Conrad Gesner- to Agassiz? Lofty impulse, 
noble daring,. bright example, simple dignity, and conscious 
superiority, none of these were wanting to our poet and inter- 
preter of Nature. 
Haller was the youngest of four children; of a frail, delicate, 
and even diseased constitution. His father, Nicholas de Haller, 
advocate and chancellor of the county of Baden, wras religious, 
stern, and laborious, but possessed no literary taste or distinction. 
Albert’s strong literary bias was not favored either by near 
example or local influence. The republic prized military, legisla- 
tive, and executive ability ; its tastes were stern, simple, and pure. 
Haller affords, however, a most remarkable example of precocious 
literary development. Driven into retirement by inability to cope 
with the rugged health of those who should have been his play- 
mates ; debarred from physical recreation ; and finding in his 
father’s library abundant material to occupy his secluded exist- 
ence, we hear of such wonderful results, as the composition of a 
Chaldaic Grammar and of a Biographical Dictionary by a boy of 
nine years. 
His father had placed him under a stern instructor, Abraham 
Baillodz by name, whose chief merits were those of a devout 
Calvinist and a refugee from religious persecution, whose harsh- 
ness made the life of young Haller miserable. But fortunately that 
very sensitiveness and delicacy of organization which aggravated 
his misery saved him from hatred of religion itself in the person 
of his tormentor; in his composition “the elements were kindlier 
mixed.” The only revenge possible for him was in satires which, 
at the age of ten years, he rained on the head of his persecutor. 
His father was training him for the church; but his death, which 
occurred when the boy was but thirteen years old, left him free to 
follow the already eager bent of his mind for natural science, and 
he at once fixed upon the profession of medicine as most akin to 
his chosen pursuits. For a while after his father’s death he 
attended a public school in Berne, where he signalized himself by 
passing the required examination long before the age prescribed, 
and by presenting in Greek the theme for final examination, which 7 
was required only in Latin. As if, in precocious manhood, he had 
assumed for himself the direction of his career, the next year we 
find him pursuing the study of medicine at Bienne, under Doctor 
Neuhaus, the father of one of his young companions, employing 
his leisure in delving into the philosophy of Descartes and in 
writing poetry. At a fire, which occurred in the house in which 
he lived at Bienne, the boy exposed himself to great danger in 
rescuing his precious literary treasures from the flames; but he 
afterwards manifested his goodness of heart, as well as maturer 
judgment, in destroying the satires and poetical compositions 
which he had saved at such peril. 
The same year he entered upon the study of medicine at Tubin- 
gen under Duvernoy and Camerarius. But Tubingen could not 
long satisfy his youthful ardor. The fame of Leyden, and the 
reputation of Boerhaave, Albinus, and Ruysch, carried the day over 
his love of home. There were heights of science to be climbed 
from the watery plains of Holland brighter to youthful ambition 
than the glow of his snow-capped mountains. 
Here the clearness, candor, and unaffected eloquence of Boer- 
haave sank deep into his heart, of whom he says : “ Some, though 
few, will rival him in erudition ; his divine temper, kind to all, 
beneficent to foes and adversaries, detracting from no man’s 
merits, and binding by favors his daily opponents, may, perhaps, 
never be paralleled.” Here was the great cabinet of Ruysch, 
where, says Yicq-d’Azqr: “Among so many organs wonderfully 
prepared, amid cadavers which had recovered, as it were, a new 
life, he saw a shriveled old man of ninety winters, but still laborious 
and active, who seemed, like an enchanter among his wonderful 
preparations, to have united to the secret of preserving them that 
of rendering himself immortal.” Albinus, on the contrary, was in 
the early dawn of his fume. Here we must imagine him pursuing 
the career, so devoid of classic and crystalline glitter in the eyes 
of the world, but so full of the glow of life, of a student of medi- 
cine; occupied with lectures, dissections, cliniques; distinguished 
among his fellows by his frail and youthful appearance ; a brighter 
eye, a quicker comprehension, a readier memory, a more untiring 
ardor; plying his masters with eager questioning, perhaps favored 
by them in secret above his fellows; but of this portion of his life 
the record is meagre. 
Having completed the prescribed course of study at Leyden, he 8 
returned to Tubingen to graduate, actuated probably by tbe same 
motives which led Linnaeus and Boerhaave to take their doctor’s 
degree at Harderwyck. His thesis (for at that time a thesis was 
not the meaningless formality into which it has now degenerated) 
proclaimed him a thorough anatomist and a profound scholar. 
After graduation he embarked a large share of his small patri- 
mony in a foreign tour, in visiting the schools of other lands, and 
in completing his studies under the advantages thus secured. 
Ilis delicate health was severely threatened by unremitting activity 
in study ; he hoped from his travels its complete restoration. 
In London he was the recipient of the distinguished attentions 
of Hans Sloane, Douglas, and Cheselden. At Paris he sought the 
instruction of Geoffrey, the Jussieus, Petit, Ledran, and Winslow? 
of the last of whom he called himself the pupil. At Paris, a body 
on which he was prosecuting his anatomical researches having at- 
tracted, by its offensiveness, the attention of the neighbors, inform- 
ation was lodged against him, and he fled in haste, fearful of the 
galleys. Even at the center of scientific authority he sought in 
nature the soundest instruction and highest authority of all. A 
refugee from Paris, he planned a visit to the renowned schools of 
Italy, Padua, Bologna, and Pisa, but ill health conspired with a 
slender purse to thwart his projects, and lie returned to Switzer- 
land, seeking in his own mountain air a tonic for the body, and in the 
study of the mathematics, under Bernouilli, at Basle, a corroborant 
for his enthusiastic and poetic temperament. While at Basle he 
occupied for a season the chair of anatomy, while Dr. Mieg, the 
incumbent, was prostrated by an attack of sickness, and gave an 
earnest of bis future success as a teacher by securing the approval 
of the faculty and the warmest admiration of the students. 
While here, he was first seized with a passion for botany, under 
the inspiration of the genius loci, and, at once, with the possession 
of the merest rudiments of the science, planned and commenced a 
complete Flora of Switzerland, which resulted several years later in 
his great work, the Historia Stirpium Helvetise Indigenarum. From 
Basle he made excursions throughout Switzerland, crossing snows 
and torrents, glaciers and mountain-passes, collecting, preparing, 
copying, and describing what he saw, with the passionate activity 
which he carried into every thing he undertook. From this time 
his health became robust, for thus nature repays those who wor- 
ship her in her sanctuaries, in forest and field, on the mountain-top 9 
and by the resounding shore. But the Swedish star, rising to the 
zenith with so steady and intense a beam, eclipsed the fame which 
these labors had else secured. 
His career of study at length completed, he returned to Berne 
in 1730, at the age of twenty-two, with a high reputation, valua- 
ble friendships secured, a fair knowledge of the world, and a 
thoroughly trained intellect, to embark upon the career of a prac- 
titioner of medicine. He now appeals to a different tribunal from 
those which had honored his high attainments in science, and 
experiences the same petty trials and disappointments which 
await every young practitioner who commences practice relying 
upon his own knowledge, skill, sagacity, and experience, for his 
professional advancement. He now leaves “ the calm and lumi- 
nous atmosphere of the schools for the stormy limbo of actual 
practice.” His want of success is eminent. One of his biogra- 
phers thus apologizes for this distinguished failure as a practi- 
tioner :—“ The ignorant,” he says, “ who are ordinarily jealous, 
and care not to praise several talents in the same individual, 
accused him of giving too much time to theory, as if medicine 
were a science without principles, or as if it were a duty to ignore 
them and a crime to learn them.” His satires, also, he says, were 
not forgotten. But to our view his want of success requires no 
strained apology. He who undertakes the practice of medicine 
must hold the well-being of his patients as his supreme duty and 
care. The public is sufficiently conversant with its own best 
interests, and above all with its personal safety, not to allow even 
the distractions of science to usurp the attention and service 
which it claims as its own. Haller was but a youthful practi- 
tioner, wedded to science and poetry. Under the influence of 
their allurements, and in the ardor for scientific fame, it would 
be but natural that practical duties should be deemed onerous— 
should be too lightly esteemed—perchance overlooked; and so, no 
doubt, his fellow-citizens thought. He was bitterly disappointed 
by his failure to secure a hospital appointment after four years of 
professional life in his native city; but he sought solace for this 
neglect in inaugurating and bringing forward some of the great 
works which he had planned, as, for example, the “ Commentaries 
on Boerhaave,” which were commenced as early as 1729, and by 
securing domestic felicity in wooing and winning Marianne Wys, 
to whom he was devotedly attached, and whom he had celebrated 10 
in one of his finest and most popular poems, under the name of 
“Doris.” Nor was he allowed to quit Berne without evidence 
of appreciation of his genius on the part of his fellow-citizens, 
who, although they would not trust him with their lives in sick- 
ness, erected for him an anatomical amphitheater, and gave him 
employment in the public library and in the arrangement of a 
museum of medals and coins. The publication of several mono- 
graphs in anatomy and botany had given him a reputation in the 
scientific world, and led to a most important change in his pros- 
pects, one which, by securing a field for the exercise of his talents 
and wonderful industry, laid the foundation of his fame. 
George the Second of England, and Elector of Hanover, had 
recently founded an institution of learning at Gottingen, in which 
Haller was offered professorships of botany, anatomy, and surgery. 
George the Second had come to the throne of England, in 1727, 
but little better acquainted than his father with the English lan- 
guage, and like him, also, more interested in his electoral dominion 
than in his kingdom, leaving the latter, according to Hallam, to 
be governed mainly by his ministers. Although his libertine 
tastes were not greatly influenced by respect for science or litera- 
ture, he proved a generous benefactor of the infant university— 
probably the most commendable act of a shameless life. 
Haller did not long hesitate to accept the proffered dignities; 
and bidding farewell to Berne, removed with his family to Gottin- 
gen. A sad affliction attended the very outset of his career in 
that city—none less than the loss of his wife, wdio was killed by 
being thrown from a carriage. In an ode to her memory, bewail- 
ing her loss, he says: “Far from all that I hold dear, from all 
those whom blood or friendship made worthy of affection ; here, 
where I had only thee; here, shall henceforth be my country; here, 
where no friends will mourn for me, where I possess nothing but 
thy tomb; here shall be my own sepulchre, by thy side, whither 
my fate is leading me.” 
He now gave himself up so entirely to the duties of his chair 
and to his scientific labors, and with such success, that the fame of 
the new university spread throughout Europe, and the world 
marveled at his intellectual stature. The simple enumeration of 
the works which he published during the seventeen years of his 
life at Gottingen will sufficiently attest his fertility of intellect; 
but in addition to these, he contributed frequently to historical 11 
and literary publications, and to the the Transactions of the Koval 
Society of Gottingen, of which he was one of the founders and 
perpetual president, and was the soul of all enterprises designed 
to secure honor and influence to a seat of learning now 
ranking among the first in Europe; honored by such names as 
those of Blumenbach, Siebold, the Grimms, Muller, and Mit- 
sclierlich, and still one of the most frequented by American stu- 
dents of all the schools of the Old World. In 1742 he com- 
pleted his great work on botany, pronounced, on no less authority 
than that of a president of the Linnsean Society of London, 
“ One of the most excellent and complete Floras the world ever 
saw.” Between 1739 and 1744 appeared his “ Commentaries on 
Boerhaave” in seven folio volumes. In 1743 appeared the first 
series of plates of his “Anatomical Atlas;” in 1747, his “Primse 
Linese,” or text-book of Physiology. In 1751 he edited the 
“ Methodus Studii Medici ” of Boerhaave, with copious annota- 
tions. He edited also “ Buffon’s Natural History ” in German, and 
published several academical discourses. 
He was on terms of intimate friendship with the prime-minister 
of Hanover, through whose intervention he obtained for the Uni- 
versity numerous benefactions. He was thus enabled to establish 
a lying-in-hospital, a botanical garden, an anatomical and surgical 
theater, and a school of design, with the object of perpetuating 
frail organic characters in natural history. By encouraging 
students in the thorough investigation of definite problems in 
medical science, and by using them as collaborators in his own 
researches, he secured valuable acquisitions, to which the powers 
of a single mind or the physical endurance of a single body would 
have been inadequate. Years afterward he mentions with pride 
the names, now distinguished, of those students whom he had 
thus initiated into scient ific research, as Meckel, Zinn, Zimmermann, 
Schobinger, Yoss, Andersch, and others—names known to every 
student of anatomy. Amid all other pursuits, however, he kept 
constantly in mind and in preparation the reform in physiology, 
which is his greatest work and surest title to fame. 
As the result of these labors, learned societies vied with each 
other in bestowdng honors upon him. He was chosen a Fellow of 
the Royal Societies of Stockholm and of London, of the Academies 
of Paris and of Berlin. As early as 1745 he had been made a mem- 
ber of the Sovereign Council of Berne, to which position he was 12 
eligible by hereditary right. At the request of George the Sec- 
ond, Francis, Emperor of Germany, ennobled him with the title 
of “Baron of the Empire.” His name was honored wherever 
science was esteemed. He left the University at Gottingen in a 
full tide of prosperity, and escaped becoming a witness to the 
indignities which Hanover suffered during the long wars which 
followed the usurpations of Frederick the Great. Haller gives 
as his motive for quitting Gottingen that his constitution was 
broken down; he would have laid his bones there, he says, had 
not the state of his health caused him to apprehend an invalid and 
useless existence or a premature death through the continuance 
of his labors as a teacher. Other motives, doubtless, contributed 
to form his resolution. His salary at Gottingen had permitted 
him to make no provision for age or infirmity ; he left his profes- 
sor’s chair in circumstances of as little independence as when he 
first occupied it; in fact the very honors which had been showered 
upon him made his narrow income more manifest and more 
uncomfortable. No wonder, therefore, that when he found his 
native city eager to Avelcome him—proud, now, of the distinction 
which he conferred upon her, and holding out to him lucrative 
offices and a share in the government, and appealing to the 
mountaineer’s love of home—that he was found willing to exchange 
the level plains of the Leine for the ramparts of the Aar. Over- 
tures were made to him by the -King of England to accept the 
Chancellorship of the University at Gottingen ; by the King of 
Prussia was offered him that of Halle ; the Czar proposed to him 
a lucrative appointment at St. Petersbourg; Oxford offered him 
the chair of Dillenius ; but Switzerland held him for the remain- 
der of his days. When he left Hanover he was in the prime of 
manhood, and his return to Berne was by no means a retirement 
from active life, nor a renunciation of his now commanding in- 
fluence. His studies were not intermitted, and as a legislator and 
ruler his clear intellect and weight of character afforded ample 
opportunity for beneficent activity. 
The Grand Council of Berne, in which Haller now took his 
place, which exercised sovereign authority in the Canton, was 
composed of 299 members chosen from a certain number of fami- 
lies, and, according to Burke, Berne was the “ best governed com- 
motiAvealth on the face of the earth.” A senate, consisting of 
twenty-seven members, was invested with more immediate 13 
authority ; it was chosen from the Grand Council. The Canton 
was divided into a certain number of districts or bailiwicks, over 
each of which was a governor who enforced the laws and admin- 
istered justice. As these posts were very honorable and profit- 
able, they were much coveted. The governor resided in a fine 
mansion, exercised undisputed sway, and received imposts, fines, 
and perquisites, enabling him to accumulate in the six years, to 
which the tenure of the office was limited, a considerable fortune. 
One of these, the government of Aquileia and directorship of 
the salt mines of La Roche, was assigned to Haller. His admin- 
istration was blameless ; under his direction the price of salt—a 
commodity of great importance in a pastoral community—was 
lessened, and its quality improved ; but he by no means renounced 
his physiological studies. Debarred from the prosecution of 
anatomy, he turned his attention to experimental physiology, 
experimenting on living animals to an extent which, he says, he 
is afraid to indicate lest he should be accused of boasting. It 
was during this period mainly that the “ Elementa Physiologiae ” 
composed, the eighth volume appearing in 1760, two years 
after the expiration of his term at La Roche, and eleven years 
before his death. This was the magnum opus of his life. His 
botanical system was superseded by that of Linnaeus ; his text- 
books have been left far behind in the march of science; the 
stores which his erudition amassed are ransacked for learned 
consultation only; his poetic effusions are pale beside the glow- 
ing colors in the gardens of later florists ; but in the recognition 
of the properties of the tissues, of the independent endowments 
of the different elements which constitute the animal fabric, 
involved in his doctrine of irritability and sensibility as proper- 
ties of matter, he gave an impulse to physiology, which, re-enforced 
by Bichat, and by the leaders of modern science, and by the sys- 
tematic study of the properties of the tissues in living animals, is 
changing the character of medical knowledge, and placing its 
method and laws side by side with the experimental sciences in 
certainty and capacity of sure progression. On this subject I 
shall be excused for dwelling at some length, not only in order to 
determine the extent of Haller's claim on our gratitude, but 
because it is of the first importance that the direction in which 
medicine is progressing, and in which alone it can progress, should 
be recognized ; in order that we may lend our encouragement and 14 
influence where they will be of most avail ; that we may not be 
distracted by the innumerable false lights which self-interest 
is constantly waving frantically before the eyes of the pro- 
fession ; in order that mere instruments and drugs, inflated 
by the venal commendation of manufacturers, may not occupy 
for us too large a space on the horizon of medical knowledge ; in 
order that we may not mistake ripples of local influence and the 
splashing of schools, whose only motive of existence is in dividends, 
not ideas, for the tide-wave of medical progress; in order that we 
may not be misled by endeavors, however otherwise respectable 
or widely associated, to flatter mediocrity, dignify quackery, and 
afford valetudinarian exercise to scientific and literary infirmity; 
and that, finally, we may be well determined in our minds what 
treatment we ought to bestow" upon those who set themselves 
directly athwart medical progress, thus legitimating our righteous 
intolerance of their influence. 
The aim of all medical research is the attainment of sure pre- 
vision of the results of disease, and of the effect of remedies ; the 
certain recognition, in every case brought under medical observ- 
ation, of its course and termination under given conditions, and a 
precise knowledge of the results of treatment. The human sys- 
tem is a little world or microcosm within the world of natui'e, and, 
to a degree, independent of it, having its own attractions and 
repulsions, its periods and cycles, and its own laws, as immutable 
as those which keep the planets in their orbits. Disease cannot 
introduce into the system new laws ; there is but one science 
of life, whether in health or disease; but the elements of the 
body are numerous, they are bound together in delicate adapt- 
ation to the wants of the whole organism. Hence the prob- 
lems which disease presents are complex; hence the appearance, 
but appearance only, of uncertainty in the operations of vital 
laws. Attempts to disentangle them have been inadequate, which 
have not been brought to bear upon the elements, and it is only 
recently that these have been fairly recognized. The planet 
Leverrier was pointed out by the perturbations of Uranus; in the 
human organism we have neglected the elements and tissues, the 
planets and systems, of the human firmament. Haller’s great 
work was a protest against this mode of study, and the indication 
of the true basis of medical knowledge, and the true direction of 15 
medical progress. He first brought order out of chaos. By recog- 
nizing that sensation and motion are properties, not of the entire 
body, but of definite parts of it; that contractility belongs 
exclusively to muscular fibre, and sensation to nervous tissue, life 
was no longer regarded as an inexplicable unity, but as the sum of 
the endowments of the constituent parts of the organism, its science 
having, like every other science, its ultimate inexplicable facts, but 
now the subject of scientific analysis. 
To know that carbonic oxide gas (a poison with which every 
house is liable to be tainted) produces certain symptoms, and even 
death when largely administered, is but superficial knowledge; 
but to know that these symptoms and death are the result of a 
paralysis of the blood-disks, by which they are rendered inert in 
hsematosis, is to possess an intelligent acquaintance with the mat- 
ter ; is to have translated a hieroglyphical sentence into the lan- 
guage of the human organism. 
To know' that a temperature of 115° Fahrenheit is fatal to the 
human body, is no very important acquisition ; but to know that 
it is fatal because that temperature of the blood paralyses the 
entire muscular tissue of the body, is to have found the elements 
by which alone the vital problem can be solved. 
The simple discovery of albumen as a pathological product of 
secretion, with the easy tests by which it is recognized, has done 
more to give precision to the diagnosis of what before was obscure 
disease than any discovery since that of auscultation. But it is 
not enough to watch the doors of a house in order to know what 
is going on within. We must explore its penetralia, measure its 
stores of vital force, find out how its fires are put out, and where 
the storms beat in, and watch the riot in blood and nerves. Vital 
statistics and nosological systems cannot answer our inquiries, for 
these but watch the human tenements from afar. Every cause of 
disease must be traced to its effect on the life of each tissue; like- 
wise, every medicine administered must be followred throughout 
the system. Here there is still a terra incognita. The source 
of fibrin is not yet certainly known; the sources of animal heat 
and muscular power are still in dispute ; it is not settled whether 
nerve force and electricity are identical; the glycogenic function 
of the liver, the production of diabetes by wounding the medulla 
oblongata, and of epilepsy, by section of the spinal cord, still 
stand as isolated landmarks in physiology and pathology, instead 16 
of being understood as the natural sequences of well established 
vital laws. This then, I argue, is the direction in which we 
should labor; not in multiplying observations of outward symp- 
toms, but in tracking the derangements of the body to their seat 
in its most secret recesses, and learning their hidden nature; in 
studying atomic combinations and decompositions, and the accom- 
panying liberation or repression of the forces of life. What a 
field is here offered for conscientious toil or enthusiastic activity, 
or, rather, what motive for the consecration of a life to labor. 
With such aims, a soul is given to what, without them, is lifeless 
routine. Outward signs and symptoms are and have long been 
sufficiently studied and expounded ; true progress now consists in 
sounding the depths of life, in learning the laws which prevail in 
the laboratory of forces and transmutations beneath the surface 
which separates the outward world from the inner world in man. 
We can no longer be content with catalogues of symptoms and 
appearances ; we must have the life, the law, the truth, the reality, 
beneath the appearances. 
I leave you to determine, as a corollary from the foregoing, howr 
large a share those branches of medical science, which have for 
their object the promotion of this kind of knowledge (as General 
Anatomy, Anatomical, Physiological, and Pathological Chemistry, 
and Experimental Physiology and Pathology), should have in a 
thorough medical education. 
Furthermore, all the unfortunate divisions and strifes, by wdiich 
practical medicine is afflicted and thwarted of its highest aims, 
are possible, only by ignoring the scientific point of view. 
There can be no doubt that, under the sv'ay of science, the most 
fraternal feeling will ultimately pervade the whole body of prac- 
titioners. Let us hope for its speedy realization. 
With what tolerance, think you, a Ilerschel, a Newton, or a La 
Place, would have heard of astronomical sects, of an eclectic, hom- 
eopathic, or clairvoyant astronomy ; or a Faraday, a Brewster, a 
Tyndall, of eclectic, homeopathic, clairvoyant, and mesmeric 
physicists; or a Lavoisier, a Davy, a Liebig of clairvoyant, 
homeopathic, or eclectic chemistry ? Sound practical medicine 
is the admission of demonstrated scientific principles to the control 
and direction of the medical art. When the movement inaugu- 
rated by Haller shall have borne its rich and abundant fruit, medi- 
cal sects will have passed into oblivion, and the terms eclectic, clair- 17 
voyant, and homeopathic practitioners will only excite a smile at 
the vagaries of the past, for there is and can be but one science 
of life, of which the true physician must be the minister. 
I cannot dwell longer on this theme, important as it is. I have 
but indicated what appears to me to be Haller’s chief claim on 
our gratitude, and the bearing of his doctrines of irritability and 
sensibility, as properties of animal matter, upon the advance of 
Physiology. 
One who enters upon the study of Haller’s “ Elements,” will 
be struck at the outset with the clear vision manifested on the 
subject of the resources and means of advancement of the science. 
The preface would not be out of place in the most modern trea- 
tise on Physiology; it is matchless in its clear scientific insight and 
in beauty of language. The name of Bacon in the first line of 
the work places it under the banner of the Baconian philosophy— 
the philosophy of utility and of progress. He had found a better 
guide than Descartes, the hero of his boyish admiration. 
He says, “ I am so utterly opposed to those cloud-builders 
(who would divorce Physiology from Anatomy), that I am per- 
suaded that we know scarcely any thing of Physiology that is not 
learned through Anatomy.” “ To have gone over the whole 
body, and to have studied all its regions thoroughly, is as rare and 
as difficult as a full history of all the cantons, all the rivers, val- 
leys, and hills of an immense region. Life is short; shorter still 
is that of the Anatomist, which either death cuts short, or another 
career interrupts, or at least other duties of civil life disturb. It 
can be shoAvn, even by positive calculation, that is not possible in 
twenty years to work out thoroughly all the parts of the human 
body.” 
“Animals must be dissected, but it is by no means sufficient to 
dissect their dead bodies ; they must be vivisected. In a dead 
body motion is wanting. It is necessary, therefore, if we would 
witness motion, to observe the living animal. But the whole of 
Physiology is occupied with the external and internal movements 
of the living body. Therefore, to investigate the circulation of 
the blood and its more subtle motion, to understand respiration, 
the growth of the body and the bones, the vermicular movement 
of the intestines, and the course of the chyle, it is absolutely 
necessary to sacrifice living animals. A single experiment has 
often refuted the laborious fictions of whole years. This cruelty 18 
lias done more for true Physiology than nearly all other methods, 
by the combined employment of which our science has pro- 
gressed.” 
He shows the value of Pathological Anatomy to Phy- 
siology, and thus speaks of the employment of the micro- 
scope:—“Again, since there are minute divisions and elements in 
which that molecular activity takes place which constitutes the 
whole of Physiology, and since our eyes are created for the com- 
mon offices of life, and for seeing from afar that which tends to 
bodily safety or hurt, it is necessary to arm them with the micro- 
scope, that we may study these minute divisions.” 
“ Chemia species qucedam est Anatomes,” Chemistry is a kind 
of Anatomy, a truth on which Robin and Verdeil founded their 
great work on Anatomical Chemistry, which has marked an 
epoch in our science. 
The work is full of such gems as this :—“ Xatura sola nova est 
sola fida, nunquam salis colitur, nunquam t'rustra.” I know 
not whether most to wonder at these intuitions, or admire the 
beauty of their setting. 
In every poi’tion of the body Haller either made anatomical 
discoveries, or took the lead in close and accurate description. 
He tested every portion of the animal organism with reference to 
its sensitive or motor endowments. His erudition enabled him to 
pour a flood of light upon questions of physiological function. 
Xo opinion so obscure, no gem of truth so hidden among scien- 
tific rubbish, that it did not find a place on the pages of his great 
work. To this day even a branch of Physiology can hardly be 
said to be wrought out unless note is taken of the treatment 
bestowed upon it by our author. In the discovery of the devel- 
opment of the heart and of the foetal circulation, and of the 
continuance of the circulation after the cessation of the heart’s 
action, he rounded and filled out Harvey’s work. By his treatise 
on monstrosities, he laid, according to St. Hilaire, the foundation 
of the science of Teratology. He found Physiology a tissue of 
fictions, a pseudo-science like the Phrenology, Biology, and Ani- 
mal Magnetism of the present day, in disrepute among the learned, 
on account of its slight basis of demonstration and its extraordi- 
nary assumptions. In raising it from its low estate and giving 
it rank among the sciences, he justly earned the title of the 
“ Father of Physiology.” There is abundant evidence that Haller had stimulated his 
ambition and directed his studies by the example of Conrad 
Gesner, of Zurich, at that time pronounced the first naturalist the 
world had seen since Aristotle. One of Gesner’s descendants was 
his most intimate friend; the example was too near hot to have 
aroused emulation in one whose talents gave him so fair a prospect 
of succeeding to the brilliant inheritance of Gesner’s fame. The 
infinite variety of nature summoned into exercise all his powers; 
their exercise was in him that of a strong man rejoicing in his 
strength; toil was a pleasure; great results were accomplished 
with ease ; his work was such as others could share, an advancing, 
social, natural, encyclopaedic ; he sought no isolation in which 
facts should be tortured into giving up their laws; he sought no 
Egerias for retired communion with the shy spirits of nature ; the 
law beneath the appearances, or the law within the law, did not fret 
his imagination ; he would never have sought for the philosopher’s 
stone or elixir of life with crucible and alembic ; fond of the light, 
he was unwilling to grope in any darkness; he sought in the 
light only the power “which made the darkness and the light 
and dwells not in the light alone.” 
These are a part of Haller’s scientific and intellectual glories ; his 
social andreligious charaeterand influencealso demand recognition. 
There can be no doubt of the sincerity of his religious convic- 
tions, of the purety of his life, and the wide range of his Christian 
benevolence. 
After his return from Gottingen he was made a member of the 
Supreme Consistory, the highest religious tribunal of the reformed 
church in the Canton of Berne. Through his influence the sala- 
ries of the clergy of the Pays de Vaud Avere increased, and he Avas 
charged Avith the distiibution of the funds appropriated for that 
purpose. 
He published several works of religious instruction. Among 
these his Letters to his Daughter, on the Evidences of Christian- 
ity, has been highly praised, not so much for its literary merit as 
for responding to the wants of one Avho is seeking in earnest 
reliable solutions of the problems of the Christian faith. 
He published also a reply in detail to all the arguments with which 
Voltaire had attacked Holy Writ. The Reformation had ceased 
to make conquests ; the Church of Rome continued regaining the 
ground she had lost until a final bloAV tvas given to her empire by Voltaire, Rousseau, and the incendiaries who lighted the fires of 
the French revolution. The teaching and authority of Rome 
were pierced through and through by the envenomed shafts 
hurled from Ferney and Geneva. Voltaire spared nothing sacred 
in the vindictiveness of his assaults upon the gloomy terrors of 
inquisitorial superstition. Haller sought to save the truths of 
the reformed religion from being confounded with the supersti- 
tions in the destruction of which he and Voltaire were collabo- 
rators. The French revolution spared neither; the Italian 
revolution of ’48, its legitimate offspring, drove the Pope into 
exile ; and he now awaits the fate of his sovereignty at the hands 
of an united Italy. 
Haller’s earnestness and Voltaire’s mocking'spirit could but be 
at constant enmity, nor was their animosity assuaged by such 
occurrences as the following : Voltaire, learning that the Em- 
peror of Austria was about to pay him a visit at Ferney, had the 
conceit to assemble a concourse of his admirers to witness the 
honors about to he paid him by so august a personage. The 
Emperor, learning the fact, and willing to mortify the cynic’s 
vanity, turned aside from Ferney and sought out his rival, spend- 
ing hours in his society, and afterward praising loudly his erudi- 
tion, paying imperial tribute to his fame. 
To Haller’s chagrin, his doctrine of irritability and sensibility, 
as properties of tissue, was caused to assume an irreligious aspect, 
and to lend support to the grossest materialism. Lametterie, a 
French physician and author of celebrity, in a work entitled 
“L’homme Machine,” thanks Haller for his most powerful argu- 
ments, and pretends to shelter his irreligious doctrines under 
Haller’s sanction ; but Haller’s sanction was far from following 
these merely logical and purely material results of his teaching. 
He announced in the “Journal des Savans” that he could hold no 
fellowship with the author of such impieties. 
A strange inconsequence is seen in Haller’s advocacy of the 
doctrine of “ inclusion of germs ” in explanation of the trans- 
mission of vital endowments—a doctrine contrary to the very 
principles which it was his glory to have developed. He seri- 
ously expresses the conviction that the body of Eve contained 
the infinitely minute miniatures of all her descendants, which 
became by transmission and development all the generations by 
which the earth has been peopled. It is to be feared that he 21 
was led to this absurd and now exploded doctrine through super- 
natural rather than natural considerations. It would have been 
wiser to have remembered the teaching of Bacon, that “not 
only fantastical philosophy, but heretical religion spring from the 
absurd admixture of things divine and human. It is, therefore, 
most wise soberly to render unto faith the things which are faith’s.” 
It is not often that the practitioner of medicine has the oppor- 
tunity of bringing before the world convincing proofs of superior 
judgment and ability in the exercise of his profession ; far ottener 
inevitable death mocks all the resources of science and of prac- 
tical skill. Such an opportunity, however, occurred to Haller in 
treating with marked success an epidemic of bilious pleurisy, 
which prevailed in the canton of Gruyere, in the management of 
which he dispensed with bleeding, contrary to the universal cus- 
tom in the management of this disease, thus manifesting his 
superiority to routine and anticipating the recent advances in 
therapeutics. That is an unpardonable misconception which 
regards our most judicious physicians as wedded to the adminis- 
tration of potent drugs, and to the practice of unnecessarily heroic 
or perturbing treatment. In spite of theories and prejudices, 
dogmas and traditions, Rational Medicine has had her true dis- 
ciples in all ages, and she alone is ready with adequate resources 
of relief when firmness and decision are demanded in order to 
rescue an imperilled life. 
According to Ruskin, “science and poetry are to a nicety dia- 
metrically opposed, and he must be a Shakespeare and Newton, 
a Turner and Faraday, all in one, who can consort much with 
both without injury to each.” There is undoubted truth in this 
assertion, it would be hard to bring forward examples of dis- 
tinguished names in science which are known also to poetic fame. 
Haller’s poetry was the offspring of his youthful enthusiasm, of 
his religious temperament, of the spring-time of his love for Doris 
and friendship for Gesner, of the period when metaphysics had 
not lost their charm, and he preferred Descartes to Bacon. His 
poetry is marked by simplicity, purity, and love of truth and 
nature. No wonder that the last of these should have constituted 
a predominent element in his organization. The waters which 
washed the walls of Berne told him of their source amid the 
eternal silence and solitary grandeur of the shining mountain- 
top, amid the roar of the avalanche and thunders of rock- 22 
freighted glacier; amid torrents falling like a “downward 
smoke,” retransmitted into mist by sheer descent, or in their 
rage dragging the mountain to the plain; amid gleaming pines 
far above the rifts of lofty clouds ; amid the rosy light which 
departing day leaves on the snows above the deepening shadows 
of the valleys; amid storm-echoes, as the lightning shatters the 
ragged peaks; amid the marvelous tints of the flowers which 
bloom in the pure ether by the edge of eternal snows. There 
are no scenes that I recall so full of pure enjoyment as when I 
wandered free among these same mountains. I well remember 
how the bounding pulse answered the eyes which caught for the 
first time their glories from the summit of the Juras; and how 
eyes tilled with unbidden tears when they took their farewell 
look at their friendly forms. 
The following translations will give an idea of the character of 
Haller’s poetry.* 
Notwithstanding the absence of imagination and the almost 
prosaic simplicity with which nature is described, problems of 
philosophy stated, virtue encouraged, and ambition, superstition, 
luxury, and vice reprehended, his poems had a remarkable popu- 
larity ; twenty-two editions were successively called for, and 
they were translated into all the languages of Europe. 
Haller’s advanced years were a marked contrast to his enthusi- 
astic, joyous, poetic youth. In his old age he became morose, 
subject to seasons of irritability. Toward his family he was stern 
and exacting, lie was querulous under the opposition with which 
some of his opinions were met; he complained of the injustice of 
Albinus, while his own intolerance of Linnaeus was far less defensi- 
ble. In his Bibliothecae, or Encyclopedias of Botany, Anatomy, and 
Practical Medicine, lie makes a scale of merit of living authors, 
assigning to them the position and authority which each possessed 
in Haller’s estimation. By so doing he naturally aroused the ani- 
mosity of those whom he had rated below their own estimate of 
their authority and dignity, and furnished an indication that his 
erudition had been amassed at the expense of some of the finer 
feelings of his nature. He who once placed man’s highest devel- 
opment in the cultivation of true and healthful sensibility, had 
forgotten his own best teachings. 
* These were extemporized translations of liis Ode to the Alps, and of his 
First Satire. He often spent weeks together in his library. A broken right 
arm did not cost him a day. The day following the accident his 
medical attendant found him practicing in writing with his left. 
In addition to the Bibliothecae, in which every author in the 
sciences mentioned in every classic and modern language was 
epitomized, he composed three political romances, entitled 
“ Usong,” “Alfred,” and “ Fabius and Cato.” To the first of 
these only I have had access. If the other two are not superior 
to this they can scarcely be said to have added to his fame. 
They were published between 1771 and 1774. In “Usong,” a 
virtuous, despotic monarch, is imagined among the nomads of 
Asia. The want of imagination in this romance, and its unmiti- 
gated morality, are in striking contrast to the opportunities 
afforded by a realm of oriental fancy. In “Alfred ” a limited 
monarchy is portrayed, and in “Fabius and Cato” an aristo- 
cracy, to which last he gave the preference. The American Rev- 
olution, the first in a series of successful struggles for popular 
government, did not begin until the year before Haller’s death, 
lie did not survive to see Switzerland overrun by the armies of 
republican France, and to witness the overthrow of that govern- 
ment which had been the source of so many blessings to his 
native land. It was in fact the treasure which a prudent admin- 
istration had accumulated in the vaults of Berne which led to this 
wanton outrage. 
Haller died December 12, 1777. The calmness with which he 
met death is celebrated. He noted the symptoms of his disease 
with scientific appreciation of their meaning, and, as he neared 
his end, steadily observing the state of his pulse until it ceased to 
beat, he exclaimed to his physician, “ Mon ami; l’artere ne bat 
plus” (The pulse is gone), and composed himself for the final 
moment. 
Within a period of eight months Europe lost Bernard de Jus- 
sieu, Haller, Linnaeus, Voltaire, and Rousseau; never within so 
short a period did science and literature suffer so great loss. 
What an opportunity these names afford for lauding the tenden- 
cies of science and of the devout study of God’s works above 
those of literature, and the pursuit of the vagaries of the imagin- 
ation. 
I am unwilling to close here; there are many points on which 
injustice is done to Haller’s memory by silence, but I have already 24 
occupied your attention too long ; and yet not without an apology 
for so doing. To no class of men is the heritage of honored 
names so precious as to physicians. No bright goal awaits the 
physician’s most successful endeavors ; there are no titles, honors, 
or brilliant fortunes, to which he can aspire; he is forbidden to 
court notoriety; the only distinction among his fellows which is 
well earned, is that of more unwearying and more intelligent de- 
votion to the prevention and relief of human suffering; the world 
feebly commends his success, although it cruelly condemns his 
failure; not by immense multitudes or applauding shouts are his 
services recognized, but by the tear of silent gratitude, oftenest 
only by the voice of an approving conscience. But this isolation 
has its dangers. As it removes the stimulus of ambition, and 
precludes a tribunal of public accountability, by so much the more 
necessary is it that the physician should warm his generous im- 
pulses, and keep himself steadfast to his highest professional aims, 
by striving to imbibe the spirit and follow the example of the 
great and good whose names are written highest on our i'oll of 
honor.