Abstract
THE building of the new laboratory will begin on April 1. The plans are almost ready, and a most glorious place it will be, undoubtedly the finest physiological laboratory as well as the largest which was ever dreamt of. Besides the large theatre, and every possible accommodation for the lectures, it will contain rooms for collections, for a library, a smaller class-room, apartments for three assistants, lodgings for the servant and his family, &c. Then, there are five distinct laboratories most scientifically connected; (1) for physiological chemistry; (2) for physical physiology; (3) for vivisections; (4) for microscopical and embryological investigations. To this laboratory is added a complete aquarium, in which it is hoped to be able to keep all sorts of marine and freshwater creatures. (5) The private laboratory is organised so as to afford opportunities for every kind of physiological inquiry, so that future professors will feel at home in it, whatever may be their peculiar branch of physiological research. Then, of course, there are dark chambers looking to the south for optical experiments, rooms for a respiration apparatus, and all sorts of stables, an aviary, a ranarium for the summer, and one for the winter, &c. There is to be a dwelling-house close by, in fact so connected with the laboratory that from the study a lobby and a flight of stairs lead to the private laboratory. The House has been designed entirely according to the English fashion, and wonderful to say, hitherto has not yet met with serious opposition from the architects and the authorities. On the same premises there will be (1) Helmholtz's laboratory and dwelling-house; (2) a laboratory for inorganic chemistry; (3) one for pharmacology, under Leibreich. The accompanying sketch will give an idea of the whole. It covers an area of 4½ acres. The style of building is to be magnificent, much more so than is desirable, because the costliness of the establishment increases the responsibility; but now that they are at it, they do not care for ever so many hundred thousands of dollars. All around the buildings, there will be an area, after the English plan, in order to mitigate the tremor occasioned by vehicles. In the Neue Wilhelmstrasse and the hitherto very nasty lane called Schlachtgasse there remains an open space facing the streets, so that the gardens intervening between the two great masses of building get as much light and air as is possible in the town. After all we are not so exclusively military as it may seem at a distance, and some of the French millions find their way into a scientific channel.
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The New Physiological Laboratories at Berlin * . Nature 7, 405–406 (1873). https://doi.org/10.1038/007405a0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/007405a0