Mendelssohn, to the study of which he later on devoted many of his leisure hours. He here passed three happy years (from 1813 to 1816), and enjoyed the society and friendship of some genial spirits, among whom may particularly be mentioned Rapoport, afterwards Chief Rabbi of Prague, and Nachman Krochmal, the renowned Hebrew scholar and philosopher. Subsequently when Jacob Ornstein, the then Chief Rabbi of Lemberg, heard of the existence among his flock of a small and youthful band who occupied themselves with the study of secular subjects, he became alarmed, and forthwith excommunicated all the culprits. The immediate effect of this upon Erter was the loss of his pupils, and with them of his livelihood. He consequently decided to settle in the neighbouring town of Brody. On his arrival there he met with a hearty reception from the enlightened section of the Jewish community, and as a new Jewish school had just been inaugurated there he was entrusted with its management. After a short time, however, he resigned his position, and made up his mind to prepare himself for a more independent calling. With this object Erter left his grown-up family of daughters in charge of some friends and went to Buda-Pesth, at the university of which town he intended to prepare himself for the medical profession. He was then thirty-three years old, and had neither money nor friends to assist him, but after five years' hard study, accompanied by severe privations, he succeeded in passing all the necessary examinations, and took his degree, and soon after began to practise in the country. It so happened that at that time the cholera was raging, and as Erter displayed considerable skill in dealing with the epidemic, he drew upon himself the attention of the Austrian government, which entrusted him with the task of preparing certain essays, treating of the origin and spread of contagious diseases. Ultimately he returned to Brody, and continued to practise there, making himself especially popular among the poor, who found in him a kindly benefactor. His leisure time he devoted to his favourite occupation, the composition of Hebrew essays, or rather satires on Jewish subjects. He usually sent them to his literary friends to be read and criticized before allowing them to be printed in the current Hebrew periodicals. Among them he reckoned, in addition to Rapoport and Krochmal, Professor S. D. Luzzatto, Shalom Cohen (editor of the Hebrew periodical _Bikurey-Ha-Ittim_, and Dr. Letteris, the subsequent editor and publisher of Erter's collected writings under the title of ‪הצופה לבית ישראל‬^[129-1]. The last years of Erter's life were again visited by various trials, chiefly caused by the untimely death of his two married daughters, to whom he had been deeply attached. He did not, however, survive them long. He died in the year 1851.