He was now at work finishing the "Brazilian Fishes," and carrying forward the "Fresh-Water Fishes" and the "Fossil Fishes." Besides these, he read medical works till midnight, and wrote seventy-four theses on anatomical, pathological, surgical, and obstetrical subjects.
He took his degree of medicine April 3, 1830. He writes to his mother: "The whole ceremony lasted nine days. At the close, while they considered my case, I was sent out of the room. On my return, the dean said to me, 'The faculty have been _very much_' (emphasized) 'pleased with your answers; they congratulate themselves on being able to give the diploma to a young man who has already acquired so honorable a reputation.' ... The rector then added that he should look upon it as the brightest moment of his rectorship when he conferred upon me the title I had so well merited."
And the glad mother writes back: "I cannot thank you enough, my dear Louis, for the happiness you have given me in completing your medical examinations, and thus securing to yourself a career as safe as it is honorable.... You have for my sake gone through a long and arduous task; were it in my power I would gladly reward you, but I cannot even say that I love you the more for it, because that is impossible. My anxious solicitude for your future is a proof of my ardent affection for you; only one thing was wanting to make me the happiest of mothers, and this, my Louis, you have just given me."
Agassiz had taken the degree of Doctor of Philosophy, a year earlier. "The time had come," said he, years afterward, "when even the small allowance I received from borrowed capital must cease. I was now twenty-four years of age. I was Doctor of Philosophy and Medicine, and author of a quarto volume on the fishes of Brazil. I had travelled on foot all over Southern Germany, visited Vienna, and explored extensive tracts of the Alps. I knew every animal, living and fossil, in the museums of Munich, Stuttgart, Tübingen, Erlangen, Wurzburg, Carlsruhe, and Frankfort; but my prospects were as dark as ever, and I saw no hope of making my way in the world, except by the practical pursuit of my profession as physician."
December 4, 1830, Agassiz said good-by to Munich, and started with Mr. Dinkel, his artist, for Concise, his father having moved there from Orbe. Here he remained a year, arranging, meantime, his own valuable collections in natural history, at the house of his grandfather Mayor, at Cudrefin, on Lake Neuchâtel, and practising a little in medicine, in the neighboring villages.