Page:A cyclopedia of American medical biography vol. 1.djvu/100

AGASSIZ Metropolitan Water Works dam at Southboro, Mass.

Dr. Adams was an ardent advocate of vaccination and still believed in the use of the lancet in the treatment of some forms of sthenic pneumonia. He was an old-fashioned doctor and a characteristic representative of a passing generation.

Bull. Har. Med. Alumni Asso., July, 1902. Boston Med. and Sur. Jour., vol. clxvi.

Agassiz, Jean Louis Rudolph (1807-1873). Born in Motier, Switzerland, May 28.

Louis Agassiz was the son of a clergyman; his mother was Rose Mayer, a physician's daughter, and Louis was the fifth of eight children, the first four of whom died in infancy. Agassiz developed a love of natural history when still a small boy, and at an early age made a collection of fishes and all sorts of pets, birds, field mice, hares, guinea-pigs, etc., which he reared with great care. He also showed considerable skill with tools, and is said to have owed much of his dexterity in manipulation to the training of the eye and hand, gained in making shoes and toys for his sister's dolls. He was a bright active child and a general favorite. The love of teaching he showed in later life may in part at least be traced back to his father from whom he had his earliest lessons.

At the age of ten he went to the College for Boys at Bienne and later he spent two years at that of Lausanne. A brilliant student, he showed much greater capacity for languages and natural history than for mathematics, physics, and chemistry. He became proficient in Latin and Greek as well as in German and Italian. He was a splendid swimmer but did not care for riding horses. He took no interest in shooting. Later, during his university life, he was a proficient fencer.

While at Lausanne, Agassiz came much under the influence of Dr. Mathias Mayer, a physician with a large practice and under him studied anatomy. He likewise met several scientists, who aroused an ambition in him to become a naturalist. Accordingly he persuaded his parents to let him give up going into business after finishing school, as planned, and send him to Zurich University to study medicine. To become a country doctor seemed Louis' desire in order that he might have opportunity to study natural history.

Two years followed at Zurich University, a year at Heidelberg, and finally three at Munich University. While at Zurich, Agassiz gave a good deal of attention to the study of natural history and his subsequent university career was guided a good deal more by his devotion to zoology than by his medical studies. He took the degree of doctor of philosophy when he was twenty-two, a year before he became a doctor of medicine. It was chiefly owing to the pleadings of his parents that he spent enough time on medical studies to take his degree. As a university student, he was a leader both in intellectual pursuits and in convivial recreation. One of his fellow students at Zurich said of him:

"Agassiz knew everything and he was always ready to demonstrate and speak on every subject. If it was a subject which he was not familiar with he would study and rapidly master it and on the next occasion he would speak in such brilliant terms and with such profound erudition that he was a source of constant wonder to all of us." (Quoted by Marcou.) On the other hand, "At 'Kommer's' he was always the first to come and the last to go, his strong constitution requiring an absorption of food and drink which left all the others far behind him. His motto was, 'First at work, and first at play.'" (Marcou.)

When twenty-two, he had already done important scientific work, and was mastered by an ambition to become a foremost student of natural science. During his student days, while engaged in scientific work, he kept one and sometimes two artists in his employ, not easy, he says with an allowance of $250 per year; but they were poorer than he, and so managed to get along together.