In 1727, he visited England, where he became inti mately acquainted with Sir Hans Sloane, the president of the Royal Society, and Douglas and Cheselden, two of its distinguished members. He also spent some time at Oxford. He went next to France, where he formed an acquaintance with Geoffroy, Antoine and Bernard de Jus sieu, Petit, and Lcdran, and attended the lectures of the celebrated 'Winslow.. A person who lived in an adjoining house having found him engaged in private dissection, de nounced him to the minister of police, in consequence of which he was obliged to remain for some time in conceal ment. Dissections must have been conducted in that city with much greater difficulty than they are now. Paris has furnished for some time the amplest field in the world for this mode of pursuing professional knowledge : and, however much some may affect to connect this fact with the careless licentiousness of the French nation, it exhi bits a bright contrast to the feelings so prevalent in our own country relative to the remains of the deceased. Like all the prejudices of savage ignorance, these feelings ap pear to the persons who cherish them sacred and refined, though they senselessly oppose an obstinate barrier to the dissemination of the most important knowledge.
Haller went next to Basle, where he applied himself to the study of geometry under the celebrated Bernoulli, and for a short time he filled, with great credit, the anatomical chair during a temporary illness of Professor Mieg. He returned to Berne in 1729, to practise as a physician. Those who were previously established there, detracted from his professional character, by representing him as blindly attached to delusive theories, and had even the address to prevent him from obtaining the appointment of physician to an hospital, for which, in 1734, he was a candidate. Two years after, however, he succeeded in that object, and discharged the duties of the office with great credit.
The celebrity of his talents for anatomy induced the re public of Berne to form an anatomical theatre, and appoint hint their professor. About this time he cultivated various elegant studies. He pronounced an oration before a public litterary assembly, in which he asserted the general supe riority of the ancients to the moderns. • He published a collection of German odes and poetical epistles, which evinced the refined taste and delicate sensibility of the au thor, were admired in every part of Europe, and soon trans lated into various languages. The piece which gave great est satisfaction was one devoted to a descriptive account of the Alps, and the manners of their inhabitants. Possess ing, among his other accomplishments, an extensive ac quaintance with biography and civil history, he received the charge of the public library at Berne. He drew up a ca
talogue raisonnie of the books, and arranged, in luminous order, a collection of more than 5000 medals belonging to it.
In 1736, he was invited, by the regency of Hanover, to fill the chair of anatomy, surgery, and botany, in the Uni versity of Gottingen, now for the first time instituted. He embraced this opportunity of devoting himself with more decided advantages to the improvement of science. ,He celebrated, in an ode, the inauguration of that university, and gave a competent share of praise to George II. King of Britain, for the zeal with which he promoted science in every part of his dominions. These included the Ameri can colonies, which were then illuminated by the genius of Franklin. At his entrance on his official ditties at Got tingen, I faller was subjected to domestic diseouragements of a trying nature. The carriage in which his wife and three children travelled from their native country to this new situation was overset on the road, and his wile receiv ed an injury, of which she died soon after arriving at the end of her journey. Ile applied himself, however, with great zeal, to his academical duties, encomagd by the in creasing esteem of his colleaguCs, and by the assistance of his countryman Huber. He published, hi 1739, his Lec tures on Boer/zave's Institutions, on which he had annually commented to his pupils. In this work, we find some germs of those more extended undertakings in physiology, which laid the foundation for so great a share of his future fame.
Having, among his other pursuits, cultivated that of bo tany, he published, in 1742, his Enumeratio Stirpiont veticaruni, in two folio volumes, which were embellished with numerous elegant engravings. The arrangement of this work rather presents us with a view of the gradations which take place in the external characters of plants, than a distribution fitted for permanent reference. Differences of opinion have even been entertained on the number of classes which Haller admitted, some reckoning them 13, others 15. In the following year, lie published a systema tic account of the plants in the botanic garden of Gottin gen, which was republished nine years after in a more com plete state, and contained a description of some new spe cies. In 1749, he published, in one work, a collection of insulated remarks in botany, which he entitled O/tuscula Botanica. Haller's great merit consisted in the versatility of his genius, which enabled him to pass rapidly from one subject to another, excelling equally in all. From the year 1743 to 1753, he published annually a fasciculus of anatomi cal plates of the most remarkable dissections which occur red in the course of his labours. These were admired for the minute explanations and learned notes which accompa nied them.