Page:The Hunterian oration, for the year 1819.djvu/27

Rh rection and means by which we are likely to proceed with the greatest advantage.

Albert Von Haller was born at Berne, in Switzerland, in 1708, and died there in 1777. He possessed a well proportioned assemblance of vigorous intellectual faculties. His memory was surprisingly quick and retentive, scarcely any language was unknown to him, and all those in which medical records are written he both read and wrote with facility. He had great industry, and made himself acquainted with all that others knew or thought relative to our professional studies. He had great method and discrimination, and regularly registered all the knowledge he obtained by reading or otherwise. Of his talents in selecting, condensing, and arranging information from successive publications, his numerous bibliothecae afford ample evidence. Haller went to Leyden in 1725, where he became a favourite pupil of Boerhaave, and a fellow-student of Albinus. He also took opportunities of visiting Ruysch, to observe his anatomical labours. After he had finished his studies and his travels, he returned to Berne, and in 1734 he taught