The Curious Death of Peter Artedi Page 2

  On that day, and in the evening, it being a very pleasant season of the year, the guests seated themselves on some flowery turf, listening to the Pastor, who, wanting to amuse his guests, made various remarks on the names and special properties of the plants, showing them the stems and roots of Succisa, Tormentilla, Orchides, and various others. I paid the most uninterrupted attention to all that I saw and heard, and from that hour I never ceased to harass my father with questions about the name, qualities, and nature of every plant I met; indeed, I often asked more than my father was able to answer. But, like other children, I would forget immediately what I had learned, especially the names of the plants. Hence my father was sometimes put out of humor, and refused to answer me, unless I promised to remember what was told to me. Nor had this harshness any bad or long-lasting effect, for I always retained with ease whatever I heard from that time on. So it was that all my youthful powers, both of mind and body, conspired to make me an excellent natural historian—besides my remarkable retentiveness of memory, I had an extraordinary energy and ability of concentration, coupled with a brilliant intelligence and an astonishing quickness of sight. But let us now return to my dear friend.

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  It was in the autumn of 1716 that ARCTAEDIUS was sent to school at Härnösand. Here, he soon made himself stand out as rather different from the rest. The ordinary boyish amusements were not much to his liking, his out-of-school hours devoted instead to the collecting of plants, of shells and beetles and the like, and to the dissecting of fishes. In his coursework, he did as well as most, without showing anything out of the ordinary; that is, with respect to any special kind of brilliance. He early acquired—as, of course, did I as well—the rudiments of Latin, which knowledge gave him ready access to the archives of scholarship and of science in particular. In addition to many other things, he greedily devoured the writings of the medieval alchemists, a perhaps unusual preoccupation for a young boy that would have meaning later on. And so it was that ARCTAEDIUS, after passing successfully through the Lower School, was promoted to the Gymnasium, or Upper School, at Härnösand, and in due course proceeded thence to the University, furnished there with the highest possible certificate awarded.

  Now it would seem most natural that ARCTAEDIUS would follow his father, and his father’s father before him, to the University of Åbo. But it came to pass that that good institution, for reasons that do not concern us here, had been obliged to close its portals, and though by this time reopened and reconstituted, it had not attained to anything like its former status. Consequently, it was to Uppsala University to the south that he turned his direction, his name

  inscribed in the official register of the school on 30 October 1724. And here it may be helpful if I explain that the appendix “Angermannus” intends to connote “from the district of Ångermanland,” province of northeastern Sweden. As for our subject’s redirection to Uppsala, what good fortune that destination proved to be, for had he not decided so, our paths might never have intersected.

  It was also the assumption and fondest wish of his parents that ARCTAEDIUS should follow in the steps of his father and grandfather to study theology and philosophy, with the further hope in mind that he might even soon succeed to the care of the living of Nordmaling. But in decided rebuff to this course of action, despite it being his father’s natural desires on his behalf, ARCTAEDIUS took a turn of direction toward the study of nature. To his credit, and thanks be to the grace of God—for otherwise the world might not have been blessed by the contributions of this naturalist to be—he found the strength to follow his convictions, to succumb fully to the pull toward natural history that he felt so strongly even as quite a young boy. So too he allowed himself to fall for the taste he had acquired for inquiries kindred to those of the alchemists of the Ages. Thus, in the end, his father’s oft-repeated and well-intentioned injunctions and warnings to shun the pursuit of worldly and pernicious objects of study were to be of no avail.

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  At this point, I cannot but help to draw another parallel with my own history. In like manner to my friend of whom I speak, I too was most persistently directed toward the clergy. Early in my schooling I took to shunning the usual exercises intended to educate young men toward church service and to giving myself up instead to that science to which my mind was principally turned, namely, the knowledge of plants. I therefore often wandered about the outskirts of the town, and made myself accurately acquainted with all the plants I could find. I developed a sore dislike of those studies that were considered as preparatory to admission into holy orders, and the same predilection for others in which I had experienced so much pleasure. In rhetoric, metaphysics, ethics, the Greek and Hebrew languages, and theology, my contemporaries, I must admit, left me far behind; but in mathematics and particularly physics, I was as much superior to them. Also quite easily surpassing my classmates, and not without some surprise to my masters, I became a most excellent Latin scholar. I later used that language with great fluency, much to my good and long-lasting benefit—I can say now, looking back, that most of my immense foreign correspondence and my numerous academic treatises and lectures were thus penned. And, while I speak of writing, I might add here that I made a special effort at an early age to perfect my hand, thus to make something pretty of it, knowing that much attention can be gained by a neat and tidy look of things. For this reason, I labored long to sharpen my style, becoming quite pleased with it before long, especially the design of my signature:

  Botany, however, a science at that time almost entirely neglected, was what fully engrossed my attention. When still quite young, and wholly on my own accord, I displayed an unusual precociousness in bringing together a small library of books in this branch, including ARFWIDH MÅNSSON’S Een mykit nyttigh Örta-Bok of 1642 (An Extremely Useful Book of Herbs); ELIAS TILLIANDER’S Catalogus Plantarum (Catalog of Plants), 1683; JOHANNES PALMBERG’S Serta Florea Suecana (Swedish Flowering Plants), 1684; OLOF BROMELLIUS’S Chloris Gothica (The Gothic Chloris), 1694; and OLOF RUDBECK’S (the elder) Hortus Upsaliensis Academiae (Garden of Uppsala University), 1657. I recall quite distinctly an inability to comprehend clearly the details of the last two of these works, but that notwithstanding I continued to read them and the others, day and night, until I had committed them fully to memory. Hence, within my group of schoolmates and masters, I early acquired the name of “the Little Botanist.”

  At age seven, I was put under the private tutorship of one JOHAN TELANDER, a yeoman’s son from Diö in Stenbrohult Parish—a morose and ill-tempered man by all measures, who was quite better equipped to extinguish talents in a young lad, rather than to develop them. I did poorly with his guidance and escaped to the garden whenever I could, much to the annoyance of my poor mother. In fact, it was largely through her design some three years later (it was now 1717)—if for nothing else but to wean me from plants—that I was sent off with this tutor (who was hardly suited to bring up a child) to the Lower Grammar School at the cathedral town of Växjö, distanced some 30 miles to the northeast of Stenbrohult. Here, the brutal masters, according to the custom of those times, pursued equally brutal methods, much preferring harsh punishments to kindly admonitions and encouragements. Two years later still, I was placed under the thumb of another private tutor, GABRIEL HÖÖK, who, being of a somewhat milder disposition, had better talents also for teaching. But, still, no matter—try as I might, I could not eradicate the bad taste, might I say hatred, that by now I thoroughly felt towards the ordinary studies of a school.

  Still at Växjö in 1724, I was graduated just barely by my masters and passed on to the Gymnasium, where I continued my unhappy studies in those subjects then considered as preparatory to admission into church service. I well recall my dear father when he came to that school in the autumn of 1726 (it was 1 September of that year to be exact) to receive an accounting firsthand of my progress. That kind Pastor—who, by all who knew him, was regarded as most honest and trustworthy, ignorant of the wo
rld’s deceits, despising its fashions and vanities, always friendly, merry, happy, and humorous—had hoped for, and was quite prepared to hear from the preceptors, a flattering account of his beloved son’s progress in his scholarly studies. But, alas, he was told quite the opposite. While everyone was willing to allow how pleasing were my manners and how admirable my moral conduct, it was thought right, on the other hand, to advise my father to apprentice me to the learning of some handicraft, to some tailor or shoemaker, or to some other manual employment. Any one of these would be in preference to incurring any further expense towards giving me a learned education in theology, for which I was decidedly inept and evidently woefully unfit. The old clergyman at first instant grieved mightily at having thus lost his labors, and at having supported his son at school for twelve years, at considerable expense, to no purpose. But somewhat later, he was much heartened by conversation with Dr. ROTHMANN, eminent provincial physician and senior master at Växjö, at which school he lectured quite admirably on logic and physics. Calling on this good doctor with hope to be given relief from a nagging malady to which he had been subject for some weeks, my father was quite joyful to be given a cure, but also to hear a favorable suggestion. Remarking however correct might be the opinion of his colleagues, with respect to my ineptitude for those theological studies that my father and mother had planned for me, so much stronger ground was there for hoping that I would distinguish myself in the profession of medicine. These comments afforded so much the more comfort to the old clergyman. They were advanced confidently and decidedly by ROTHMANN, who at the same time handsomely offered—in case my father’s circumstances or inclination did not admit of my being maintained in that course of studies—to take me into his house, and to give me board and instruction during the year that it would be necessary for me to remain longer at Växjö. A short time afterwards, that worthy doctor gave me a private course of instruction in physiology based on the Boerhaavian principles, with so much success, that I, when later examined, was quite able to report in the most accurate way possible everything I had been taught. This good doctor also put me into the right method of studying botany, by stressing the need to search for the practical utility of what I had acquired. But of more significance still, he stressed the absolute necessity of studying that science in the systematic manner of the late TOURNEFORT—that celebrated French botanist and long-time Professor of Botany at the Jardin du Roi in Paris who, you will remember, founded his system on the premise that a plant’s correct nomenclatural description and classification is best determined by putting the greatest weight on differences in the structure of the flowers. ROTHMANN required also that I make drawings of the plant classes contained in VALENTINI’S Historia Plantarum (Natural History of Plants), which publication, as everyone knows, is by all measures only a shortened version of TOURNEFORT’S great Institutiones rei Herbariae (Organization of Plants) of 1700, which book was, upon my first glance, ablaze with light for me. After that time, and upon this excellent instruction, I devoted the whole of my mind to placing every plant I could find in its own class after TOURNEFORT’S method, using ROTHMANN’S personal copy of the former’s work, which he so kindly made available to me, and which was altogether quite costly and well out of my reach otherwise.

  While still under the continued and most excellent sponsorship of Dr. ROTHMANN, it now being 1727, my father, and my mother too—that dear sweet woman who lived with her husband in love, harmony, and with good sense for twenty-seven years and three months, bringing up their five strong children in a praiseworthy manner—while somewhat more appreciative of my wants, were still of a mind contrary to the desperate desire I had to place my future within the arms of natural history. But, thanks to Almighty God, an event unfolded that removed the last impediment to my escape. On the occasion of a small afternoon gathering of friends in my father’s garden, at which I was there as well, my father, in deep discussion, said, “Yes, it always happens, what a man enjoys doing he succeeds in.” Later that day, I challenged this good man, asking him if he in all honesty held to that contention. He, for a second time, admitting to this belief, I responded: “Then you must never ask me to be a priest, which I have absolutely no desire to be.” Eyes filling with tears, my father replied with sadness, “God give you success, I shall not force you to do that for which you have no desire.” And so it was in this way, thanks to the kind and gentle understanding of my father and the generous support of my most worthy benefactor Dr. ROTHMANN—but not least also to my own unwavering determination and most excellent God-given attributes—that I was freed most happily to distinguish myself in the profession of medicine and to accomplish wonderful and great things in the pursuit of natural history.

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  So too ARCTAEDIUS, while thus causing considerable worry and disappointment at home, broke with family traditions to lead a life in natural science, a branch of knowledge to which he was resolved to apply all his energies. But, at the academy at Uppsala just newly enrolled he learned soon enough, much to his consternation—and to mine as well, for I suffered the same disconnection some few years later when I arrived there from Lund in late August 1728—a course of study in natural science was at that time almost non-existent. Thus, it was, for example, that ARCTAEDIUS was the only student of his day to declare a desire to study chemistry, this interest extending back to his early intrigue with the science of alchemy. Of course, it should not be forgotten that he was obliged to join himself to the medical faculty, for it was only there that any instruction in natural history was then offered. But even here in those days the opportunities were meager. Only two professors of any worth belonging to that faculty had made any kind of good name for themselves in the area of natural history. These two, however, might have served well enough if it were not for the fact that by this time, in the autumn of 1724, both were well advanced in years and had all but retired from taking any meaningful share in the work of teaching, and what small teaching they did do was no longer effective. There was some sense also that these two, once renowned leaders of the medical faculty, from whom ARCTAEDIUS had hoped to gain so much, were now, to describe it in a blunt way, seriously neglecting their work. One of them was LARS ROBERG, 60 years of age when ARCTAEDIUS matriculated, and the other, OLOF RUDBECK, somewhat older in his 64th year. These learned men enjoyed a favorable reputation when young, both holding their posts on the medical faculty as Professor of Medicine at Uppsala University by Royal Appointment. They had from an early time divided the subject matter under their joint purview: ROBERG, as lecturer and demonstrator of practical and theoretical medicine, thus taking surgery, physiology, and chemistry; and RUDBECK taking anatomy, botany, zoology, and pharmacology. By all that was said about him, the first of these two men was a fair naturalist and a skilled anatomist, yet the teaching he did while ARCTAEDIUS attended at Uppsala was very small in quantity. In fact, there is no record of ROBERG having offered any public course of lectures at all. Professor RUDBECK, who was known as RUDBECK the Younger, to distinguish him from his father of the same name—who was by all measures considerably more famous than his son—was widely considered to be a very gifted and learned man, to whom ARCTAEDIUS was especially attracted by reputation. He had traveled widely in his younger days, journeying through Denmark, Germany, Holland, and England, where he made large and valuable botanical and zoological collections. There is little question also, as is well borne out by his early instruction, that RUDBECK possessed a solid knowledge of the first principles of botany, knowledge said to have been acquired from his eminent father, who was hard at work on a great botanical work, the Campus Elysii (Elysian Fields), when almost completed it was destroyed in 1702 by the great fire of Uppsala. Within a very few hours, this conflagration destroyed the greater part of the town, the castle, churches, the University, and the botanical garden, as well as the immense manuscript and the many thousands of copper plates already engraved that would have served to illustrate this great work. The elder RUDBECK, shattered by this tra
gic turn of events, died a few months later. The son, who had been assisting his father in this botanical effort, almost equally depressed and forlorn, abandoned his academic duties of researching and teaching in natural history—most unfortunately for students like ARCTAEDIUS who were so eager for this learning—to follow his intense interest in the study of languages. Thus, for the first three years of ARCTAEDIUS’S time at Uppsala, Professor RUDBECK the Younger was, as a matter of fact, entirely inactive in his prescribed department on account of his being engaged in scientific inquiries in the domain of philology. It was lamented by many that he abandoned botany in 1702 to work on his Thesaurus Linguarum Asiae et Europae Harmonicus (Lexicon and Relationships of the Asiatic and European Languages), an immense compilation in which he tried to prove that all languages derive from Hebrew, but, in the end, all his time and efforts came to naught for it was never published. When, in 1727, RUDBECK returned his attentions to his professorial duties, at the age of 67, he delivered, over a two-year period, a course of lectures on the Birds of Sweden, which was occasioned by the presence of our young ARCTAEDIUS, who eagerly got out of it all he could.