Science

In 1807, the first practical steamboat puffed slowly up the Hudson, while the people ranged along the banks gazed in wonder. Even the grim walls of the Palisades must have been surprised at the strange intruder. Robert Fulton's Clermont was the forerunner of the fleets upon fleets of power-driven craft that have stemmed the currents of a thousand streams and parted the waves of many seas.

Forming the outside boundary of Great South Bay, Long Island, a long row of sand-dunes faces the ocean. In summer groups of laughing bathers splash in the gentle surf at the foot of the low sand-hills, while the sun shines benignly over all. The irregular points of vessels' sails notch the horizon as they are swept along by the gentle summer breezes. Old Ocean is in a playful mood, and even children sport in his waters.

Some Strange Subjects and How They Were Taken

ALBRECHT VON HALLER

An epoch in physiology was made in the eighteenth century by the genius and efforts of Albrecht von Haller (1708-1777), of Berne, who is perhaps as worthy of the title "The Great" as any philosopher who has been so christened by his contemporaries since the time of Hippocrates. Celebrated as a physician, he was proficient in various fields, being equally famed in his own time as poet, botanist, and statesman, and dividing his attention between art and science.

GOETHE AND THE METAMORPHOSIS OF PARTS

THE SYSTEM OF BOERHAAVE

At least two pupils of William Harvey distinguished themselves in medicine, Giorgio Baglivi (1669-1707), who has been called the "Italian Sydenham," and Hermann Boerhaave (1668-1738). The work of Baglivi was hardly begun before his early death removed one of the most promising of the early eighteenth-century physicians. Like Boerhaave, he represents a type of skilled, practical clinitian rather than the abstract scientist. One of his contributions to medical literature is the first accurate description of typhoid, or, as he calls it, mesenteric fever.

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