HALLER, ALBERT DE, a physician and professor of the last century, celebrated for the excellence and volu minousness of his writings. Ile was born at Berne, in Switzerland, on the 18th of October 1708. His father was Emmanuel Haller, advocate and chancellor of the county of Baden. His early education was committed to one Abraham Baillodz, a fanatical and severe preceptor, not well qualified for training with advantage a mind of Ilaller's sensibility. Yet he very early discovered an un paralleled assiduity in the pursuit of knowledge. At five years of age, having already learned to write, he arranged for himself, in alphabetical order, all the words that were taught him. In a little after, he compiled dictionaries in the Hebrew, Chaldee, and Greek languages, to which he often had recourse in his advanced years. At the age of ten, he composed German and Latin verses, the merit of which astonished his teachers. He ridiculed, a Latin sa tirical poem, the pedantry of his private tutor, from whose severity he had suffered. At the age of twelve, he extracted from the dictionaries of Moreri and Bayle, 2000 articles of biography of the most celebrated men. When he was thir teen he lost his father, whose death left him in a great mea sure destitute of the resources of fortune. Being intended for the church, he finished his studies at the public school. On one occasion, having got a passage to translate into Latin, he attracted the admiration of the professors, by giving a translation of it into excellent Greek. Having finished his literary studies at the age of fourteen, he was led, by his ardour for learning, to pay a visit to Dr Newhams, an able physician at Bienne, whose son was one of his school companions. This gentleman gave him some instructions in the Cartesian system of natural philosophy. That pur suit, however, did not engross his whole attention. He continued to cultivate polite literature, and to exercise his talent in composing verses. The house in which he lived at Bienne having caught fire, he had only time to save his poems before it was burnt down. These poems
he revised in Tess than twelve months after ; and, reflect ing on the satirical strain in which they were written, he committed them to the flames, with the exception of a few, which were left to attest his poetical talent, without reproaching the goodness of his heart.
After indicating talents which qualified him for making a conspicuous figure in any pursuit, he embraced the medical profession. Towards the end of the year 1723, he began his professional studies at Tubingen, under Camcrarius and Duvernois, at that time celebrated teach ers of anatomy and medicine. While at Tubingen, he occasionally joined in the convivial parties of his fellow students ; but was on one occasion so powerfully shock ed by the abandonment of reason exhibited in these in dulgences, that he formed a resolution, which he kept for the remainder of his life, to leave off entirely the use of wine. As Boerhaave's institutions were used as a medi cal text-book at Tubingen, Haller had an opportunity of appreciating the genius of this author, which induced him to to Leyden to profit by his lectures. These two great men, having met in this manner, immediately per ceived each other's merits. Boerhaave was then teacher of medicine and botany, and Albinus demonstrator of anatomy at that celebrated school. Both of these profes sors treated him with great distinction, and excited in his mind a powerful emulation. The superb museum of Ruysch, at Amsterdam, which he often visited, contributed at this time to animate and guide his studies. At the age of 19, lie took the degree of Doctor of Medicine at Ley den. The subject of his thesis was one which he had dis cussed with Duvernois at Tubingen, the refutation of a position advanced by Professor Coschwitz, of Halle, that there were two salivary ducts in the posterior part of the tongue, which this author claimed as his discovery. Haller sheaved that these supposed ducts were two veins. His works contain the plates by which this point was eluci dated.