Jump to content

Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 52.djvu/134

From Wikisource
This page has been proofread, but needs to be validated.
122
POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

as having been carefully prepared, with every detail of substance and illustration faithfully looked after, and as excelling in the quality of making arduous questions understandable to all. He translated into French Gegenbaur's Manual of Comparative Anatomy, published his Atlas of Zoölogy, and, studying life at the seaside in his vacations, wrote those charming articles, making his name familiar to readers of all classes, which appeared from time to time in various German popular periodicals. He was commissioned by the Genevan Government to investigate the phylloxera and report upon it. He defended vivisection and charged its opponents with committing the cruelties they denounced. Did they not patronize the stock raisers who mutilated their animals to make them fatter and more pleasant to the taste; and feast on fish which had been tortured in catching; and ride behind mutilated horses?

Professor Vogt's memoir on the Archææopteryx is one of the most important documents in the discussion which defined that fossil as marking a notable stage in the transition from the avian to the reptilian form. When, in 1880, Dr. Hahn speculated on the presence of organic growths in meteorites, Professor Vogt exposed the fallacies of his conclusions; and in a second memoir he and Dennis Monier, professor of chemistry, showed with proofs from their own experiments that all the essential features of Hahn's meteoric fossils could be artificially produced with inorganic substances. He protested against the extension and predominance of militarism; contended against overloading youth with school duties; advocated a rational system of school hygiene; and opposed the study of Greek and Latin.

Vogt's Mammals, published at Munich near the beginning of 1884, with numerous plates and illustrations, was written in a pleasant style, and made most prominent the habits and the geographical distribution of animals.

The Treatise on Practical Comparative Anatomy was published after eight years of preparation, with the names of Carl Vogt and Emil Yung as joint authors, and acknowledgments to Dr. Jacquet.

As infirmity began to grow upon him, Professor Vogt tried the injections of Brown-Séquard's elixir, from which he enjoyed a temporary invigoration, and described the experiment in the Frankfürter Zeitung.

The last work he contemplated was a Treatise on the Fishes of Central Europe, which, with the assistance of M. Grote, of Barmen, was to be magnificently illustrated. He did not live to finish it.

On May 4, 1895, after Professor Vogt had suffered long from insomnia, his doctor gave him an injection of morphine. He at once fell asleep, but never woke, and at five o'clock the next afternoon his heart ceased to beat.