Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 53.djvu/563

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LIFE AND WORK OF FELIX HOPPE-SEYLER.
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Baumann, Froriep, Gaehtgens, Parke, Salkowski, Zalesky, Löbisch, Tolmatscheff, Polz, Diakonow, Liebreich, Lubavin, Manassien. Here he remained for ten years, until in 1872 he went to Strasburg to take the chair of physiological chemistry, the first and only professorship of its kind in Germany. In Strasburg he spent the remainder of his life, and here, as in Tübingen, many students came to him, among whom were Kossel, Hoffmeister, Neumeister, Frederiq, v. Jaksch, Ledderhose, v. Mering, Mauthner, v. Udránsky, Popoff, Rajewsky, Sokoloff, Howath, Herter, and Giacosa.

In 1864 Hoppe was formally adopted by Dr. Seyler, and thereafter took the name of Hoppe-Seyler. In 1858 he married Agnes Franziska Maria Borstein, by whom he had one son, Georg Hoppe-Seyler, now professor of medicine in Kiel. In appearance Hoppe-Seyler was an erect, vigorous, active man, above medium height. Although at the time of his death nearly seventy years of age, his hair was not yet gray, his step was still youthful and elastic, and he appeared yet to have many years of life before him. He was eminently what the Germans call "liebenswurdig"—kindly and sympathetic, especially toward his pupils, whom he made his friends. With all his kindliness, however, Hoppe-Seyler, like Huxley, had little patience with half truths or errors, and he possessed a sharp pen, which, in truly German fashion, told the whole truth about one unfortunate enough to incur his displeasure.

The scientific work of Hoppe-Seyler extended over forty years. His contributions to science are embraced in some hundred and forty-six separate papers. He was the author of a handbook of physiological and pathological chemical analysis, which has had six editions, and is still the best book of its kind extant. In the years 1877 to 1881 he published his celebrated text-book of physiological chemistry, which still remains as a monument to his industry, to the wide scope of his knowledge, his keenness of perception, and his power of correlating facts. Though many of the conclusions contained in the work have been modified by more recent investigation, the book stands unique among similar productions as the most exhaustive treatise on the chemistry and chemical changes of the animal and plant kingdom ever attempted.

The range of subjects in which Hoppe-Seyler published observations, outside his biochemical work, is remarkable, and includes botany, mineralogy, geology, chemistry, and physical diagnosis. He detected the presence of the newly discovered element, indium, in wolframite, and he devised a spectroscopic test for manganese, which is one of the most delicate known, and is still called Hoppe-Seyler's manganese test. Throughout his life he took a keen interest in mineralogy and geology. In 1865 he