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ENTLEMEN: Our medical faculty, as well as the whole University of Leipsic, were plunged in deep sorrow at the beginning of the term. In the course of a few days we lost Carl Ludwig and Carl Thiersch, two members of our academic association who for years past have been accounted among its ablest supporters. The death of these two eminent men brings to its close a period prosperous and brilliant for our faculty, during which a circle of talented and congenial companions worked harmoniously together. One after another during the past eleven years has left us—Radius, Cohnheim, Wagner, Coccius, and Braune—the younger men in some cases before the older; and now two have followed whom we have always held in the highest honor, and without whom we could never have imagined our faculty as existing. An academic memorial service on such an occasion needs no further justification.

In the life of our universities, in spite of all seemingly uninterrupted activity and the continual substitution of failing powers by new and vigorous ones, a decided periodicity of development makes itself felt. In the whole university and in all the faculties, periods of rest and retrogression follow those of intellectual progress. External and internal conditions combine in producing this result, and it is not always easy to understand the influences at work. One fundamental condition, however, must necessarily be fulfilled in order that a corporate body may flourish: the body must have strong and clear-sighted leaders, who can direct its activity in definite channels, and insure a unity of purpose in all the departments.

Our faculty has had one of these leading spirits for several