9
Soemmerring, the chief surgeon of the French army, Baron Dominique Larrey, came on the 4th of November to Munich, on his return from the French army, which had been acting against the Austrians in the battles of Aspern, Esslingen, and particularly at Deutsch Wagram, near Vienna. He brought with him from the battle-fields some interesting pathological objects for his friend’s collections.
Soemmerring, of course, showed Larrey his telegraph, and the latter at once consented to take it with him to Paris. Next day Larrey even assisted at the packing.[1]
- ↑ As Baron Larrey was the person who took the first galvanoelectric telegraph ever made away from the place of its invention, I think it not improper to say here a few words in remembrance of this man, who has, during more than half a century, made himself useful in military hospitals and on fields of battle. To him the army owes the improved “ambulances volantes.” He had begun his career, in 1788, by a voyage to Newfoundland, where the New World has recently been telegraphically, though not yet permanently, united with the Old, and ended in 1842 with a voyage to Algiers in Africa. The last of his numberless surgical operations he performed at Bona, to which place the cable from Europe through the Mediterranean Sea has lately been laid. He had accompanied Napoleon I. to Egypt, and made also, besides other campaigns, in 1812, the one to Moscow. During the battle at Wagram, near Vienna, which closed the Austrian campaign, Napoleon I. had, on the 6th July, 1809 (the day on which Soemmerring began to make his telegraph), created him a Baron, and subsequently at St. Helena, in his will, he left him one hundred thousand francs, adding, “C’est l’homme le plus verteux que j’aie connu.”
b 2
