It was the general belief that he chose science for his life-work because it gave unusual opportunities for torture.

He was believed to be a devoted vivisectionist; he certainly had methods of cruelty, masterly in their ingenuity.

He could make a whole class raw with punishment in a few words; and many a scorching bit of Latin verse was written about his hooked nose and fishy eye.
"But his highest talents in this direction were reserved for his wife.
His distorted idea of his own importance made him view her as a chattel, an inferior being; the more so, I believe, because she brought him little money when he married her.

She was too much the woman to pretend to kneel to him, and because she would not be his slave, she had a hard time of it.

He began by insisting that she should learn science, that she might assist him in his experiments.