Frans Cornelis Donders, 1818-1889.

Date:
1891
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Frans Cornelis Donders, 1818-1889. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    Heidelberg.”* ... 11 Our friendship has remained unclouded to the last.” Donders took, from time to time, a very conspicuous part in the assemblies and congresses of Science. Here he shone as a star of the first lustre. By universal consent he was a most admirable President, particularly where men of many nationalities were met together ; for his wide and accurate knowledge and accomplishments, his tact, the grandeur of his simple earnestness, and his magnificent personal bearing acted as a spell on all. If the occasion seemed to demand it he would give an address, sentence by sentence, in two or more languages, with perfect mastery. He presided over the fourth Inter¬ national Congress of Ophthalmologists in London, 1872, and again, for the last time, over the seventh meeting of the same at Heidelberg, in 1888; over the sixth International Medical Congress, at Amster¬ dam, 1879 ; and he was Vice-President, as well as a Royal Medallist, of the seventh International Medical Congress in London, 1881. In his own country, from 1865 onwards, he annually presided over the Physical Section of the Royal Academy of Sciences, and (alternately with the President of the Literary Section), was President in jpleno. But in 1883 he expressed the wish to withdraw from some of the more arduous of his many engagements. He was soon, alas ! to cease from the service of the University for which he had done so much. By the law of the Netherlands a Professor must retire at seventy. He was approaching that age, apparently in full vigour, though indications of gouty congestions had more than once occasioned some disquietude to his friends. His Jubilee was celebrated at Utrecht, on the 27th and 28th May, 1888, amid the universal applause of his countrymen and of men of science everywhere. He was decorated by the King, and in his honour a commemorative medal was struck. Forty of his former pupils communicated each an original scientific; paper to a memorial Festival volume, published by a committee.f The Royal Society of London, which had elected him a Foreign Member in 1866, asked three of its Fellows, Sir Joseph Lister, Mr. Jonathan Hutchinson, and Hr. Hughlings Jackson, to convey to him its con¬ gratulations ; our Physiological and Ophthalmological Societies also sent deputations. Indeed, hardly one civilised country but was in some way represented. A large sum had been subscribed, and was placed at his disposal. He assigned it to the establishment of Travelling Fellowships in Physiology and Ophthalmology, to be attached to the Universities of the Netherlands, with Utrecht as a centre; not without a glance, perchance, at an early incident in his own fortunate career. That career he now passed in review * Viz., to von Helmholtz himself, 9th August, 1886. Vide ‘ Festsitzung der Ophthalm. Gresellscliaft, &c.,’ Rostock, 1886. f ‘ Feestbundel Donders-Jubileum, &c.,’ pp. 546, Plates xvii.
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