760 BLUM BLUMENBACH wright, and then fool to a Savoyard nobleman. At the age of 34 he went to Paris, and as- sumed the titles of comte de Permission and chevalier des ligues des XIII. cantons suisses. He wrote eulogies for the great, on whose boun- ty he lived, particularly on that of Henry IV., and afterward wrote prophecies for the people. His works were collected into 173 l>ooks, of which about 130 have come down to us. In 1831, a copy of Bluet was sold in England for 20 sterling. It is said that when the plague of 1606 ravaged Paris, Bluet announced that his total abstention from food for nine days would save the city. He died on the sixth day. BU'JI, Robert, a German revolutionist, born in Cologne, Nov. 10, 1807, executed in Vien- na, Nov. 9, 1848. He was the son of a jour- neyman cooper, and at the age of twelve ob- tained employment as mass servant, but after- ward found occupation in a lantern manufac- tory and was promoted to the counting house. He accompanied his employer on journeys through the southern states of Germany, and in 1829-'30 resided with him at Berlin. Sum- moned in 1830 to the military service, he was dismissed after six weeks and returned to Co- logne, where he was employed as man of all work at the theatre. In 1831 he was appoint- ed cashier and secretary of the Leipsic theatre, a post he held till 1847. From 1831 to 1837 he made contributions to the Leipsic family papers, such as the Komet, the Abendzeitung, &c., and published a "Theatrical Cyclopaedia," "Friend of the Constitution," an almanac en- titled Vorwarts, &c. In 1840 he became one of the founders, and in 1841 one of the direc- tors of the Schiller association, and of the as- sociation of German authors. His contribu- tions to the Sachsische Vaterlandsb latter, a po- litical journal, made him the object of govern- ment persecution. German Catholicism found a warm partisan in him. He founded the Ger- man Catholic church at Leipsic, and became its spiritual director in 1845. On Aug. 12, 1845, when an immense meeting of armed citi- zens and students threatened to storm the riflemen's barracks at Leipsic, Blum by his elo- quence prevented a riot. The Saxon govern- ment continued its persecution against him, and in 1847 suppressed the Vaterlandsbldtter. On the outbreak of the revolution of February, 1848, he became the centre of the liberal party of Saxony, founded the "Fatherland's Asso- ciation," which soon mustered above 40,000 members, was vice president of the preliminary German parliament assembled at Frankfort, af- ter its dissolution a member of the committee it left behind, and ultimately representative of the city of Leipsic in the regular parliament. His political theory aimed at a German re- public based on the different traditionary king- doms, dukedoms, &c. ; since, in his opinion, the latter alone were able to preserve intact what he considered a peculiar beauty of Ger- man society, the independent development of its different orders. When the news of the Vienna insurrection of Oct. 6 reached Frank- fort, he, in company with Frobel, carried to Vienna an address drawn up by the parlia- mentary opposition, which he handed to the municipal council of Vienna, Oct. 17. Having enrolled himself in the ranks of the students' corps, and commanded a barricade during the fight, he was taken prisoner, and, after the capture of Vienna by Windischgratz, sentenced to the gallows, a punishment commuted to that of being shot. This execution took place at daybreak, in the Brigittenau. I:I.M]I:M:< II. Johann Friedrich, a German naturalist, born at Gotha, May 11, 1752, died in Gottingen, Jan. 22, 1840. His father was a teacher. His love of science was first kin- dled when he was only 10 years of age, by the sight of a human skeleton in the house of a physician, the friend of his father. While a schoolboy he made collections of human skulls and the bones of animals as a basis for com- parative anatomy. At the age of 17 he com- menced the study of medicine at Jena, where he remained three years, and afterward went to Gottingen, where he obtained his degree of doctor of medicine in 1775. On that occasion he wrote a thesis on the different varieties of the human race, De Generis Humani Varietate Nativa, in which he developed the germ of those craniological researches and comparisons for which he afterward became celebrated. In the following year he was appointed junior professor of medicine at Gottingen and keeper of the cabinet of natural history, and two years later (1778) regular professor. From 1780 to 1794 he edited a scientific publication, the Medicinische Bibliothek, for which he wrote many valuable articles on medicine, physiology, and comparative anatomy. He also obtained a reputation by the publication of his Institutiones Physiologic, a condensed and well arranged view of the animal func- tions; the work appeared in 1787, and during a period of 34 years passed through many editions in Germany, where it was the gen- eral text book in the schools. It was rendered into English by Dr. Caldwell, and published in America in 1798, and in London, by Elliot- son, in 1817. Blumenbach became still more extensively known by his manual of compara- tive anatomy and physiology (Handbuch der vergleichenden Anatomie iind Physiologic), of which three editions were published in Ger- many from 1804 to 1824. It was translated into English in 1809 by the eminent surgeon Lawrence; and again with the latest addi- tions and improvements, by Coulson, in 1827. Though less elaborate than the works of Cu- vier and Carus, this work of Blumenbach will always be valued for the accuracy of his own observations, and the just appreciation of the labors of his predecessors. Blumen- bach was the first who placed comparative anatomy on a truly scientific basis. In 1785, long before Cnvier's time, he instituted the
