Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 22.djvu/562

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546
THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

Jamaica. After the invasion of Belgium, in 1814, the family removed to Paris, and established themselves there. M. Milne-Edwards studied medicine under the direction of his brother, William Edwards, author of a work on the influence of physical agents upon life, and afterward a member of the Institute, and was graduated as Bachelor in Letters in 1821, and Doctor of Medicine, at Paris, in 1823. In the latter year he presented several memoirs to the Academy of Sciences, among which was one on "The Influence of the Nervous System upon Digestion," which he prepared in conjunction with Breschet. In 1825 he published, in connection with Vavaseur, a "Manual of Materia Medica," of which a second edition appeared in 1828, and translations were made into English and German. His attention was afterward concentrated upon the zoölogical branches of science; and from this time on the history of his life is a record of his researches and his publications in those branches, the briefest satisfactory account of which would fill the space of an article.

In 1826 he began, with V. Audouin, a long series of researches on the anatomy, physiology, and zoölogy of the marine animals of the French coasts, for the purposes of which he, either alone, or with his co-laborers, made several sojourns at different points on the sea-shore. Between 1826 and 1830 he thus explored in succession the coasts of Granville, of the Chaussey Islands, of St. Malo, Noirmontiers, and collected the materials for his work on "The Littoral of France," in two volumes, one of which is devoted to the history of the Annelids, and was the subject of a long report by Cuvier. In the beginning of 1827 he presented to the Academy a memoir which he had prepared, in connection with M. Audouin, on the circulation of the blood in the Crustacea, which received the prize in Experimental Physiology. His "Manual of Surgical Anatomy," published in the same year, was translated into Dutch and English. During a few years following he was engaged much of his time in chemical investigations in the laboratory of M. Dumas, whose pleasure it was, in making one of the speeches on the presentation of the medal, to speak of himself as the oldest of his friends and the closest witness of the labors by which his life was made illustrious.

In 1832 he was appointed Professor of Natural History in the Collége Henri IV, and Professor of Public Hygiene and Natural History in the Central School of Arts and Manufactures. In the next year he prepared the zoölogical part of an elementary work on natural history, by himself and Achille Comte. In 1834 he published his "Elements of Zoölogy," an elementary book on zoölogy for lyceums, which is included, with a "Botany" by Jussieu and a "Mineralogy" by Beudant, in the "Elementary Course of Natural History," and a general work on the Crustacea, in three large volumes and an atlas, the last volume of which appeared in 1836. It was while he was engaged upon this work—"which has become classic, and has been the point of depart-