established in Berlin, in order in this manner to aid in the support of
the family. Influential friends of my father secured her the election; and
she was admitted to the school in 1839, I being at that time ten years of
age.

The education of midwives for Berlin requires a two years' course of
study, during six months of which they are obliged to reside in the
hospital, to receive instructions from the professors together with the
male students. My mother went there in the summer of 1840. I went to stay
at the house of an aunt, who wished my company; and the rest of the
children were put out to board together.

In a few weeks, my eyes became affected with weakness, so that I could
neither read nor write; and I begged my mother to let me stay with her in
the hospital. She applied for permission to the director, and received a
favorable answer. I was placed under the care of one of the physicians
(Dr. Müller), who took a great fancy to me, and made me go with him
wherever he went while engaged in the hospital. My eyes being bandaged, he
led me by the hand, calling me his "little blind doctor." In this way I
was constantly with him, hearing all his questions and directions, which
impressed themselves the more strongly on my mind from the fact that I
could not see, but had to gain all my knowledge through hearing alone.

One afternoon, when I had taken the bandage off my eyes for the first
time, Dr. Muller told me that there was a corpse of a young man to be seen
in the dead-house, that had turned completely green in consequence of
poison that he had eaten. I went there after my rounds with him: but
finding the room filled with relatives, who were busily engaged in
adorning the body with flowers, I thought that I would not disturb them,
but would wait until they had gone before I looked at it; and went