In his teaching Frank never forgot, on all possible occasions, to impress upon the students the importance of thinking independently on the subjects that were brought before them, as in this way they would learn to distinguish the false from the true. Whenever he discovered that he had made a mistake in one of his statements he did not hesitate to confess the fact. His son, Joseph, is responsible for the statement that his father never seemed to him happier than when he had an opportunity of making to his auditors some such speech as the following: “Gentlemen! Strike out this or that line in one of the volumes of my work! When I wrote it I believed that it was correct; but now I am convinced that the very opposite is the truth!” When Brunonianism was first transplanted from Great Britain to the Continent and was received enthusiastically by many physicians, Frank was not disposed immediately to accept its teachings, and yet at the same time he did not believe that it was quite fair to ignore the thing altogether. Not a few men inferred from this hesitating attitude on his part that he rather favored Brown’s system. As a matter of fact he was an eclectic in his views and was always ready to appropriate whatever seemed to him good in any system or school of doctrines. As Director of the Allgemeine Krankenhaus he adopted the plan of having the leading physicians and surgeons of the Clinic first report publicly once a week what were the important diseases that had come under observation during that period; and then he would call upon the auditors to discuss the subject freely. Peter Frank died at his home in Vienna on April 24, 1821. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ CHAPTER VI TWO EMINENT GERMAN SURGEONS OF THE PRE-ANTISEPTIC PERIOD JOHANN FRIEDRICH DIEFFENBACH, born in 1794 at Koenigsberg, an important city of Northern Prussia, received his early medical education in France; first under Boyer, Dupuytren, Larrey and Magendie, at Paris, and then later at Montpellier, under Delpech. After his return to Germany in 1823 he devoted his efforts largely to surgery, and soon distinguished himself so greatly in this department of medicine that in 1840, after the death of Karl von Graefe, he was chosen his successor in the office of Director of the University Surgical Clinic at Berlin. His death occurred in 1847.