this subject, grounding his opinions in preference upon the writings of Stahl, Haller, and Grimaud. Another person, who approached in some respects the first, who, in point of erudition, equalled the second, and who surpassed the third in every respect, (I mean Barthey,) was offended at the silence of Dumas, who, in borrowing several of his ideas, had forgotten to acknowledge their author. Barthey had a right to complain, and he did so, with that air of authority which was peculiar to him, and which he but too strictly maintained in this discussion.

I pass over slightly the "Physiological Sketch on the Transformation of the Organs."-Journal de Physique, 1805 and 1806. To believe that the stomach can fulfil the functions of the brain, and vice versa, the brain those of the stomach, would be to return to the chimerical ideas of Paracelsus and Van Helmont. It was quite in a different spirit that Dumas published an observation, that does great honour to his talents, on the subject of an epilepsy rendered intermittent, and afterwards cured by the administration of bark.-Journal de Medicine.

Dumas pronounced, in 1804, a Discourse on the future Progress of the Science of Man. His hopes were founded on the continuation of the application of analysis, and the perfection of the faculty of observation.

A new edition of his Physiology, as before in 4 vols. 8vo, appeared in 1806.

The Eloges of Fouquet and Dorthey, published, the first in 1807, and the second in 1808, are two papers which do equal honour to the head and heart of Dumas. He had, it is true, in praising the former, merely to repeat what medical Europe had proclaimed for thirty years; but he had to make known in the latter a man nearly of the same age with himself, a former competitor for the same chair, and a rival for glory in the same school; although Dorthey, in a more especial manner, cultivated other branches of the natural sciences, in which he has left a great name.

We now come to a period of his life when Dumas published a work more original, and more peculiarly his own, if I may be allowed the expression, than any of the foregoing. It is the best of his productions, and also the last.

VOL. V.

3 X

No. 20.

The treatise of Dumas on "Chronic Diseases," is divided into four parts. In the first, he explains the essential phenomena of these diseases, and the differences which exist between them and acute diseases. The second part explains the theory of the formation of chronic diseases. In the third part, he examines the modifications produced in diseases, by age, sex, passions, and influence of climate. The last and fourth part exhibits the application of the distinction of the elementary affections to the treatment of diseases.

This work, although very extensive, remained imperfect until it was followed by a volume of developments and applications to a great number of observations. When Dumas wrote this treatise, which appeared at Paris in 1812, he enjoyed a high reputation, which could only be increased by it: he was surrounded by that consideration which his talents and his eminent social qualities merited. Finally, he was loaded with academical, literary, and other honours of every kind, when he died at Montpelier, on the third of April, 1813, at the age of forty-seven.

We have still another heavy loss to deplore, and it is still more recent and more premature; we mean that of Julien-JeanCæsar Le Gallois, who died in February last.

Professor Dumeril has already published a very interesting account of Le Gallois. The son of an honest agriculturalist in easy circumstances, he received a liberal education: he gave early signs of talent, and, on finishing his studies, he felt a penchant for medicine, which he studied in the university of Caen, which reckoned, among its medical professors, Chibourg, Le Canu, and Rousell, and which had produced Vicq-d'Azyr, Thouret, and Vauquelin. The revolution about this period assumed a most frightful shape. Those who still retained some sentiments of commiseration and some ideas of equity, and the young in particular, burning with indignation, ranged themselves under the standard of a party which has since been distinguished that of Federalism. Le Gallois became, under these circumstances, one of the leaders of the students. It is useless, impolitic, and perhaps dangerous, to dwell upon those times of calamity: suffice it to say, that the party in question was crushed in Calvados as well as throughout France, and that

Le Gallois, obliged to fly, hid himself, first at Paris, where he was discovered; that he took refuge among the sciences, and was so fortunate as to be employed in the manufacture of saltpetre in a department at a distance from the capital. Upon the formation of the three schools of medicine he returned to Paris, where he was received as one of the pupils from the departments; among his fellow students, he was distinguished, and began by fixing the attention of the learned world upon him by his Thesis for the doctorate on the following question: "Is the blood identically the same in all the vessels which it passes through?" This production announced a man of science, who was determined to proceed in his studies by the thorny, but otherwise fertile, road of experience.

Le Gallois shortly afterwards took part in the discussions occasioned by the famous thesis of Boulet, who, in an ingenious and erudite paradox, threw some doubt on the existence of Hippocrates.

Suddenly, a grand idea struck Le Gallois and absorbed all the faculties of his mind. He sought for the solution of the boldest problem,-for he sought nothing less than the discovery of the principle of life!

The history of the sciences exhibits to us the first chemists as almost all occupied for centuries with the transmutation of the metals and the universal panacea. They could neither create gold nor prolong the life of men, and yet they enriched the arts with numerous useful processes, and medicine with several very powerful remedies.

Le Gallois did not succeed any more than they in determining in what life precisely consists; and, perhaps, it is not given to the feeble intelligence of man to discover the primordial laws of the great phenomena of our organization; but, in seeking for the solution of a question still undecided, Le Gallois threw great light on several very important points in physiology. He is, in this respect, the most distinguished man which our school has produced since Bichat.

The labours of Le Gallois are contained in a work entitled "Experiments on the Principle of Life, particularly on that of the Motion of the Heart, and on the Seat of this Principle." This valuable collection of facts has produced a work equally

important; viz. the report made on this subject to the first class of the Institute, by Baron Humboldt, so dear to the sciences on many accounts, and by our colleagues, Halle and Percy; these gentlemen caused to be repeated before them, first, the series of experiments relative to the principle of the inspiratory movements; secondly, the experiments relative to the principle of the powers of the heart. But these subjects cannot be analyzed in the present discourse.

Le Gallois has also left a work on the teeth of the rabbit and the guinea-pig, on the duration of gestation in the latter animal, and on the relaxation of the symphysis pubis at the moment of parturition. The observations and experiments on these various subjects were made while Le Gallois was enquiring into the principle of life.

The result of all his enquiries and experiments relative to circulation are also printed in the excellent article Heart, (Caur,) which Le Gallois supplied for the New Dictionary of the Medical Sciences, which reckons among its authors several professors of this faculty, and almost all the most distinguished physicians and surgeons of this capital.

Le Gallois, who was qualified by his education and talents to practise either surgery or medicine, adhered to the latter branch of the healing art. He had been nearly a twelve month physician to the Bicetre. He lived in Paris, and it was when proceeding on foot to his duty, as he frequently did, that he was attacked by a peripneumonia, to which he fell a victim in the beginning of February last year, leaving an interesting family inconsolable for his loss.

We have to express our regret that we cannot detain you a few minutes longer by detailing at full length the life of Villars, dean of the faculty of medicine of Strasburg, and associate of our society of medicine, who died on the 27th of June last.

The details of his life would exhibit to your view a man deprived almost from birth of all hope of acquiring the slightest knowledge of letters. You would see afterwards by what difficult bye-paths, and how, with talents almost entirely flowing from nature, he attained an honourable place among the physicians, and particularly the most distinguished botanists of the day.

The intimacy of Villars, in his youth, with J. J. Rousseau; his zeal for the instruction of the numerous pupils whose minds he formed; his humane attentions to the sick as physician to a great military hospital, or as a practitioner among all classes of society, will present some affecting traits to whoever shall draw up his eloge with all the extent it deserves.

Let us no longer withhold the recompenses which await those, who at the last exhibition of our practical school ought to be preserved as examples for the emulation of their fellow students.

This last exhibition has not been in truth so numerously attended as on other occasions, and the candidates have not given the same proofs of proficiency as in preceding years. He whose name was first called, was a convalescent from a severe disease contracted in the hospital, when he underwent his examination. The other candidates who will receive prizes after him, whatever be the place which they occupy, are equally worthy of encouragement and indulgence, both on account of their exertions and of the arduous circumstances in which they found themselves at the end of the last and the beginning of the present year.

Report of the State of Vaccination in Sweden. (Translated from the Original in Swedish.) Ordered, by the British House of Commons, to be printed, July 19, 1814.

[From the London New Medical and Physical Journal, for September, 1814.]

On the 14th of January, 1814, Mr. Macmichael, an English gentleman, attended the Royal College of Health in Stockholm, and delivered to the college a copy of the Report of the National Vaccine Establishment in London, dated the 22d April, 1813, and presented to Lord Sidmouth, secretary of state for the Home Department; at the same time he requested, that a short account of the progress of vaccination in Sweden, and of the measures which had been adopted for its promotion, might be communicated to him, for the information of the British Parliament.

The Royal College had particular satisfaction in receiving