Page:Czecho-Slovak Student Life, Volume 18.djvu/283

teaching, and enroll at the University of Prague. From here, he graduated with the degree of Doctor of Medicine in 1819. His inaugural dissertation, “A Contribution to the Knowledge of Subjective Visual Phenomena,” was so important and striking, that it won for him the friendship and protection of the German writer, Goethe. And it was through Goethe’s recommendation and influence that Purkyně was appointed professor of physiology and pathology at the University of Breslau, in 1823. Owing to the current prejudice against Slavs, Purkyně was coldly received when he first came to Breslau, but he soon wore this away, “winning every one over by his superior knowledge and urbane demeanor.” (Garrison’s History of Medicine).

However, not being able to carry on research at the University according to his liking, Purkyně started a physiological laboratory in his own house as early as 1824. The importance of the work done at his home is best known from the tribute given to it by Dr. F. Noll in the biography of Julius Von Sachs, one of Purkyně’s students, and which was printed in “Naturwissenchaftliche Rundschau” of Sept. 1927 as follows: “Near the town house of the Sachs at Breslau there stood in a large garden a small one-storied structure, insignificant from without, and much restricted within. From this unpretentious building, however, there was exerted upon the scientific world a mighty influence, and from this place there went out young men inspired by the zeal of an exact, experimental investigator, and pledged to enrich the store of biological knowledge. That little house was the laboratory of the famous physiologist Purkyně. It was, perhaps, the first place where exact physiological experiments were successfully performed. In this garden young Sachs was the playmate of the two sons of Purkyně. They were three keen and enthusiastic observers with a common and absorbing interest in nature. Purkyně, who, in addition to his studies in animal physiology, occupied himself to some extent with botanical investigations, very soon recognized the gifts of young Sachs, and aroused in him an active interest in the work of the laboratory.”

Garrison in his History of Modern Medicine says, “And the work done by the master and his pupils proved to be of such high character that the Prussian government finally erected a Physiological Institute for him at Breslau in 1842.”

Purkyně left Silesia in 1850 in response to a call to the chair of physiology at the University of Prague, taking with him the young Julius von Sachs. In doing this, Purkyně never realized what great services he rendered to mankind and science in particular, for, the young Sachs having lost both of his parents and brother, was thrown upon his own resources. This being a serious problem, Sachs now already a young man, but not yet out of the