"I discovered that miraculous worlds may reveal themselves to a patient observer where the casual passer-by sees nothing at all," he said in his autobiography. A few early observations--most notably that the sea animals he collected in an aquarium in his room waved their tentacles when he turned on the lights--piqued an interest in the sensory systems of animals that would last his lifetime.
By the time Frisch reached college age, it was clear that his interests were focused on zoology. Nevertheless, his father thought medicine a more practical field than zoology, and in 1905 Frisch enrolled as a student of medicine at the University of Vienna. Medical school, Frisch later wrote, proved invaluable in providing a background in histology, anatomy and human physiology. He studied with his uncle, Sigmund Exner, who was a renowned physiologist and lecturer at the university. Though Exner taught human physiology, he encouraged his nephew to pursue his interest in animals by aiding him in a research project on the position of pigments in the compound eyes of certain beetles, butterflies and crustaceans.
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