San Bernardino, working there as a surgeon, and was awarded the honorary rank of Colonel in the Paraguayan Army. On 28 October 1934 he was awarded Doctorate Honoris Causa by the Universidad Nacional de Asunción in recognition of his outstanding work. In August 1935, at the end of the Chaco War, the hospital in San Bernardino was closed and Hassler undertook what was to be his final trip to Switzerland. On 4 November 1937 he died in Asunción and was buried in the cemetery of San Bernardino in Paraguay. Ethnographic collections The ethnographic collections of about 5,000 items collected by Emil Hassler in northern Paraguay and Chaco and displayed at the World's Columbian Exposition in Chicago in 1893 were acquired by the Field Museum, Chicago. Some items from the collection were subsequently exchanged with the pre-Columbian Native American collections of the New Brunswick Museum, Canada. Other ethnographic collections of about 10,000 items made during Hassler's expeditions between 1885 and 1895 were purchased in 1919 by the Museum of Cultures, Basel, Switzerland. In 1920, a part of these collections was gifted to the Museum of Ethnography of Geneva. Botanical collections Hassler's botanical collections constitute the foundation of scientific knowledge of the flora of Paraguay. Collected between 1885 and 1919 by Hassler himself or under his direction, it is estimated that 90% of Paraguay's existing species are represented in his collection. Specimens were deposited in Asunción, sent to Geneva and other major global herbaria. The collection numbers about 13,000 or about 60,000 if duplicated specimens are included. A complete catalogue of these, inclusive of other collectors' related collections from Paraguay, (Catalogus Hasslerianus, 2008-), is being published and made available online. The collections formed the basis of the description of many new species, published in the work Plantae Hasslerianae in several parts between 1898 and 1907 as well as subsequent studies both by Emil Hassler and by others. These collections serve today as a basis for drafting a flora of Paraguay. Hassler's specimens are of a high quality and include all parts necessary for identification. The attention to detail, including the formal composition of the specimen, the conservation status, etc. make these collections a very important resource for taxonomic studies of the flora of Paraguay. These qualities were demonstrated in a public exhibition at the Museum of the History of Science, Geneva in 2002. After his death in 1937, the deposit of his