Page:Czecho-Slovak Student Life, Volume 18.djvu/285

to none. His “Handbuch” and “Lehrbuch” of Botany gave evi- of the training which Purkyně had given him, and to which he frequently alluded as “harte Ar- any.

“It was a masterpiece of presentation in text and illustration alike, and not only set forth in clear and critical fashion the facts of plant-life which came within its scope, but presented to a considerable extent theories, unworked problems, and the prophecy of future fields which made it invaluable to botanical research. Even more than the presentation and material of the text, the admirable illustrations gave to the work an exeellence not yet surpassed. Today we still meet in nearly all botanical texts these excellent old familiar figures of Sachs. In its translated form this book extended the most recent botanical knowledge and the thought of the modern scientific world into all the lands of culture, and it served the interests of physiological investigation and stimulated general botanical interest in a way which heretofore had been denied any botanical work.” (Dr. F. Noll.)

According to the testimony of Professor Arthur of Purdue University, “the Lehrbuch has worked wonders in the United States.” And for a long time the (Oxford University) English translation was the only text used in many of the universities of England.

Following the example of Purkyně, his teacher and benefactor, Sachs selected from the mass of applicants and extended the privileges of his institute only to those who possessed the “heilige Ernst” like himself. Hence, Sachs easily can be styled the “Father of Modern Botany”, for he influenced not only entire Germany, but Holland, England and America as well.

Purkyně did not live to see the wonders which his students and grand-students were accomplishing in all parts of the northern university zone of both hemispheres, for he died in Prague on July 28, 1869. But all educated posterity is obliged to take cognizance of his wonderful accomplishment, for Purkyně was first in so many things, in fact so much so that the words of his friend and admirer Goethe apply to him: “If he was one who stood apart from the world, let it be called well, for the world can be served best by those who are not of it.”

Dr. F. H. Garrison in his History of Medicine has ably summarized Purkyně’s achievements. “As a microscopist, Purkyně was the first to use the microtome, Canada balsam, glacial acetic acid, potassium bichromate, and the Drummond lime light (1839). In 1825 he described the germinal vesicle in the embryo, and he was the first histologist to employ the term protoplasm, which he applied to the embryonic ground substance in 1839. He discovered the sudoriferous glands of the skin with their exretory duets. (1833), the pearshaped ganglionic (Purkyně) cells in the cerebellum (1837), the lumen of the axis-cylinder of nerves, and the gan-