[69] This subject will be noticed again in the history of the sexual theory.
[70] C. F. Wolff was born at Berlin in 1733. He studied anatomy under Meckel and botany under Gleditsch, in the Collegium Medico-chirurgicum in that city. He afterwards resorted to the University of Halle, and there made acquaintance with the philosophy of Leibnitz and Wolff, which predominates too much in his dissertation, ‘Theoria Generationis’ (1759). Haller, the representative of the theory of evolution against which this work was directed, replied to it in a kindly spirit and entered into a correspondence with its youthful author. After lecturing on medicine in Breslau, he was admitted to teach physiology and other subjects in the Collegium Medico-chirurgicum in Berlin, but was twice passed over in the appointment to professorships in that institution. He received an appointment in the Academy of St. Petersburg from the Empress Catherine II in 1766, and died in that city in 1794. See Alf. Kirchhoff, ‘Idee der Pflanzenmetamorphose,’ Berlin, 1867.
[71] Johannes Hedwig, the founder of the scientific knowledge of the Mosses, was born at Kronstadt in Siebenbürgen in 1730. Having completed his studies at Leipsic, he returned to his native town, but was not permitted to practice there as a physician because he had not taken a degree in Austria. He consequently went back to Saxony and settled first at Chemnitz, and in 1781 in Leipsic. Here he was appointed in 1784 to the Military Hospital, and became Professor extraordinary of Medicine in 1786 and ordinary Professor of Botany in 1789. He died 1799. He commenced his botanical studies as a student at the University, and continued them in Chemnitz under trying circumstances, till as Professor he was free to devote himself entirely to them.
[72] See P. Harting, ‘Das Mikroskop,’ §§ 433 and 434.
[73] Johann Jakob Bernhardi, born in 1774, was Professor of Botany in Erfurt, and died there in 1850.
[74] Karl Asmus Rudolphi, born at Stockholm in 1771, was Professor of Anatomy and Physiology in Berlin, and died there in 1832.
[75] Heinrich Friedrich Link was born at Hildesheim in 1767, and became Doctor of Medicine of Göttingen in 1788. In 1792 he became Professor of Zoology, Botany, and Chemistry in Rostock, Professor of Botany in 1811 in Breslau, and in 1815 in Berlin, where he died in 1851. He was a clever man of very varied accomplishment, but not a very accurate observer of details, and was held in estimation by many chiefly as a good teacher and philosophic author of popular works on natural science. He was one of the few German botanists in the early part of the present century who aimed at a general knowledge of plants, and combined anatomical and physiological enquiries with solid researches in systematic botany. Of his many treatises on all branches of botanical science, zoology, physics, chemistry, and other subjects, his Göttingen prize essay must be considered to have contributed most to the advancement of science. Von Martius somewhat overrates his scientific importance in his ‘Denkrede auf H. F. Link’ in the ‘Gelehrte Anzeigen,’ München (1851), 58-69.
[76] Ludolf Christian Treviranus, born at Bremen in 1779, became Doctor of Medicine of Jena in 1801, and practised at first in his native town, where he became a teacher at the Lyceum in 1807. In 1812 he accepted the professorship in Rostock vacated by Link, and was again his successor in Breslau. In 1830 he exchanged posts with C. G. Nees von Esenbeck, who was a professor in Bonn; he died in that town in 1864. In the first part of his life he occupied himself chiefly with vegetable anatomy and physiology, afterwards with the determination and correction of species. His first works, which are noticed in the text, and the treatises on sexuality and the embryology of the Phanerogams, published between 1815 and 1828, are the most important in a historical point of view. His ‘Physiologie der Gewächse’ in two volumes (1835-1838) is still of value for its accurate information on the literature of the subject; but it can scarcely be said to have contributed to the advance of physiology, for its author adhered in it to the old views, and especially to the notion of the vital force, at a time when new ideas were already asserting themselves. The ‘Botanische Zeitung’ for 1864, p. 176, contains a notice of his life.
[77] Charles François Mirbel (Brisseau-Mirbel) was born at Paris in 1776, and died in 1854. He began life as a painter, but having been introduced by Desfontaines to the study of botany, he became Member of the Institute in 1808, and soon after Professor in the University of Paris. From 1816 to 1825 the cares of administration withdrew him from his botanical studies, but he resumed them and became in 1829 Professeur des cultures in the Museum of Natural History. Mirbel was the founder of microscopic vegetable anatomy in France. All that had been accomplished there before his time was still more unimportant than the work done in Germany. His writings involved him in many controversies, and he made enemies by refusing in his capacity of teacher to allow the importance at that time attributed to systematic botany, but directed his pupils to the study of structure and the phenomena of life in plants. We are told by Milne-Edwards that he suffered much from the fierce attacks which were made upon him; he sank at last into a weak and apathetic state, and was for some time before his death unable to continue his studies or official duties (‘Botanische Zeitung’ for 1855, p. 343).
[78] Johann Jakob Paul Moldenhawer was Professor of Botany in Kiel; he was born at Hamburg in 1766, and died in 1827.