Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 12.djvu/56

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1em (Author:Flora Masson)  HOFFMANN, (1660–1742), the most famous physician in a family that had been connected with medicine for 200 years before him, was born at Halle, February 19, 1660. He received his school education at the gymnasium of his native town, where he acquired that taste for and skill in mathematics to which he attributed much of his after success. At the age of eighteen he went to study medicine at Jena, whence in 1680 he passed to Erfurt, in order to attend Kasper Cramer s lectures on chemistry. Next year, returning to Jena, he received his doctor s diploma, and, after publishing a thesis, was permitted to teach. Constant study then began to tell on his health, and in 1682, leaving his already numerous pupils, he pro ceeded to Mindeii in Westphalia to recruit himself, at the request of a relative who held a high position in that town. After practising his profession at Minden for two years, Hoffmann made a journey to Holland and England, where he formed the acquaintance of many illustrious chemists and physicians. Towards the end of 1684 he returned to Minden, and during the next three years he received many flattering appointments. In 1688 he removed to the more promising sphere of Halberstadt, with the title of physician to the principality of Halberstadt ; and on the founding of Halle university in 1693, his reputation, which had been steadily increasing, procured for him the prirnarius chair of medicine, while at the sama time he was charged with the responsible duty of framing the statutes for the new medical faculty. He filled also the chair of natural philo sophy. With the exception of four years (1708-12), which he passed at Berlin in the capacity of royal physician, without however giving up his professorship, Hoffmann spent the rest of his life at Halle in instruction, practice, and study, interrupted now and again by visits to different courts of Germany, where his services procured him honours and rewards. His fame became European. He was en rolled a member of many learned societies in different foreign countries, while in his own he became privy councillor. He died at Halle, on November 12, 1742. Hoffmann s writings, the result both of compilation and original research, have still a considerable suggestive value. His theories, though sometimes vague and even idle, contributed in some degree to introduce a revolution in medical science ; while his doctrine of atony and spasm in the living solid as the sole cause of internal disorders turned the attention of physicians more directly to the primary moving powers of the system. He pursued with ardour the study of practical chemistry, and pharmacy owes to him several preparations which are still in general use. It was through Hoffmann also that many of the mineral springs of Germany first came into repute as health resorts.

1em  HOFFMANN, (1805–1878), an eminent Chinese and Japanese scholar, was born at Wurzburg on the 16th of February 1805. After studying in the philosophical department of the Wiirzburg university, the young mail took to the stage in 1825 ; and it was only by an accidental meeting with the German traveller, Dr Siebold, in July 1830, that his interest was diverted to Oriental philology. From Siebold himself he acquired the rudiments of Japanese ; and in order to take advantage of the instructions of Ko-ching-chang, a Chinese teacher whom Siebold had brought home with him, he made himself acquainted with Malay, the only language except Chinese which the Chinaman could understand. Such rapid advance did Hoffmann make that in a few years he was able to supply the translations for Siebold s Nij)pon ; and the high character of his work soon attracted the attention of older scholars. Stanislas Julien invited him to Paris; and he would probably have accepted the invitation, as a dis agreement had broken out between him and Siebold, had not M. Baud, the Dutch colonial minister, appointed him Japanese translator with a salary of 1800 florins or 150. The Dutch authorities were slow in giving him further re cognition ; and he was too modest a man successfully to urge his claims. It was not till after he had received the offer of the professorship of Chinese in King s College, London, that the authorities made him professor at Leyden, and the king allowed him a yearly pension. In 1875 he was decorated with the order of the Netherlands Lion, and in 1877 he was elected corresponding member of the Berlin Academy. But these honours came almost too late ; for a disease of the lungs from which he had long suffered ter minated fatally on the 19th of January 1878.

1em 1em  HOFMANN, (1810–1877), Lutheran theologian, was born December 21, 1810, at Nuremberg, whence, after passing through the usual gymnasium course, he in 1827 proceeded to the university of Erlangen as a student of theology and history. In 1829 he became the pupil of Schleiermacher, Hengstenberg, Neander, and Ranke, at Berlin ; in 1832 he passed his ex amination as a candidate in theology at Erlangen ; and in the following year he received an appointment to teach Hebrew and history in the gymnasium there. In 1835 and 1838 respectively he &quot; habilitated &quot; in the philosophical and in the theological faculty at Erlangen, where in 1841 he was appointed professor extraordinarius in theology. In 1842 he accepted a call to an ordinary theological chair at Rostock, but in 1845 he returned once more to Erlangen, where he had been nominated as successor of Harless. Apart from his professorial and literary activities, his life was a singularly uneventful one ; he was, however, an enthusiastic adherent of the political party of progress, and as such sat as member for Erlangen and Fiirth in the Bavarian second chamber from 1863 to 1868. His death occurred on December 20, 1877.

