whether statesmen or warriors, been conversant enough in history and medicine, to have dissuaded them from undertaking the expeditions to St. Domingo and Walcheren." Besides these more prominent employments, of which we have given but an imperfect account, Dr. Blane, while in London, was frequently consulted by various other departments of government, as well as by public bodies. He was a member of committee for drawing up quarantine regulations; he was engaged in an inquiry into the state of the hulks at Woolwich; he drew up directions for the transportation of the army from Egypt; he was the author of a scheme for the better conducting of the medical service of India; and conjointly with Count Rumford and Justice Graham, was on a commission for improving the condition of ships employed in conveying convicts to Botany Bay. He was also consulted by foreign nations on the like subjects, and was presented with gold medals and other tokens of approbation, by the sovereigns of Russia and Prussia, and by Mr. Adams, the president of the United States. In 1812, in consideration of his faithful and valuable services, he was created a baronet by the Prince Regent.
Sir Gilbert Blane's principal works are—"The Diseases of Seamen;" "Select Dissertations on several subjects of Medical Science; "and "Elements of Medical Logic." All of these indicate, on the part of the author, the scholar, the highly cultivated physician, the philosopher, and the philanthropist. The engrossing subject of his mind throughout life, whether while afloat or on shore, seems to have been the welfare of British seamen—that class of men whom he felt had contributed so much to our national greatness, and of whose glories and victories he had been a witness and participator. In a pamphlet published so late as 1830, he traces with the spirit and enthusiasm of one whose soul was devoted to the subject, the progressive improvement in the health of the navy during the past fifty years. In this remarkable document he well observes, "It would be of little avail that the depths of mathematical science, the elaborate researches of mechanical, optical, and chemical philosophy, should be called to the aid of navigation, so as to co-operate so admirably in carrying it to its present exalted state of perfection, unless the means of preserving health kept pace with these mighty improvements."
The last public act of this excellent man worthily crowned his long, honourable, and useful career. In his eighty-first year, he founded, with the approbation of the lords of the admiralty, gold medals, to be conferred "once in two years, on two medical officers of ships of war in commission, who shall have delivered into office journals evincing the most distinguished proof of skill, diligence, and humanity, in the exercise of their professional duty." The veteran lived to make the first award of the medals himself. In 1832 he made selection of two journals as best entitled to the honour, the first of which fell to Dr. Liddell (now Sir John Liddell, director-general of the medical department), for his journal describing the cockpit and other arrangements on board the flag-ship Asia, of which he was surgeon at the battle of Navarino. He thus concludes his comments on the various journals submitted to him for the adjudication of the medals:—"Having arrived at the eighty-third year of my age, and labouring under a variety of serious infirmities, with little hope of again performing the like duty, I now will, with the warmest sentiments of unfeigned regard, and best wishes for the continuation of the respectability and welfare of the medical officers of the British navy, only say, valete vixi." Since his death, which took place in London, on the 26th June, 1834, the medals have, in accordance with the conditions of the founder, been adjudicated by the director-general of the medical department of the navy, the president of the Royal College of Physicians, and the president of the Royal College of Surgeons of London.—J. O. M'W.
BLANGINI, Giuseppe Marco Maria Felice, a musician, was born at Turin in 1781, and died at Paris in 1842. His family was opulent, but his precocious talent and ardent love for music induced them to allow him to adopt this art as a profession. His master was the Abbé Ottani, mæstro di capella to the cathedral of his native town, for whom, when but twelve years old, he officiated as deputy. At fourteen Blangini composed a mass with orchestral accompaniments, that was performed at the cathedral. In 1799 he went to Paris, where he gained rapid esteem as a teacher of singing and composer of romances. He was soon commissioned to complete the opera of La Fausse Duegne, which Delia Maria had left unfinished. In this he was so successful, that he was immediately employed upon other works, by means of which he quickly established a wide reputation. He gained considerable celebrity by his singing of his own compositions at a series of private concerts which he gave, and which were the resort of all the fashion of Paris. In 1805 the young musician was appointed kapellmeister to the elector palatine of Bavaria, in which capacity he wrote the opera of Der Kaliphenstreich for Munich. The princess Borghese, sister of Napoleon, appointed Blangini master of her concerts, and in 1809 he succeeded Reichart as kapellmeister at Cassel to Jerome Buonaparte, then king of Westphalia, when Beethoven refused this office. In 1814 Blangini returned to Paris, and on the restoration of Louis XVIII. received the title of honorary superintendent of music and special composer to the king, and was engaged as professor of singing in the royal school of music and declamation, but was subsequently deprived of this last appointment by the Viscount Larochefoucault. During the next fifteen years he produced several more dramatic works, both at the Opera Comique and at the Academie, and in 1817 revisited Munich to bring out an Italian opera, Trajano in Dacia. He is best known by his very numerous romances, and nocturnes for one and two voices, which possess a charming fluency of melody. The fact that of all his compositions for the theatre, his masses and his instrumental pieces, none have survived him, suggests that he owed the opportunity for their production less to their merit than to the opulence of his family, and the interest this procured him.—G. A. M.
BLANKAARD, BLANKAERT, or BLANCARD, Stephan, a Dutch physician of the latter part of the seventeenth century, was born at Middelburg, studied at Breda and Amsterdam, and took his degree at the university of Franeke. He afterwards returned to Amsterdam, in which city he continued to reside until his death, at the commencement of the eighteenth century. Besides practising medicine with considerable success, Blankaard published a great number of works upon medical and anatomical subjects, many of them in the vulgar tongue; a circumstance which brought upon him a violent attack from Goehlicke, who accuses him of opening the door of the sanctuary of medicine to quacks and ignorant pretenders, who could only abuse the little knowledge they might thus acquire. Of his numerous writings the best is his "Anatomia Practica Rationalis," published at Leyden in 1688, in which he describes the results of the anatomical examination of two hundred human subjects, with short statements of the diseases from which they had suffered. This work is remarkable from its precision and clearness, and may still be studied with advantage. His "Lexicon Medicum Græco-Latinum," of which a great number of editions and translations appeared in various countries, is also a valuable work. Blankaard was one of the first to prove by injections, that there is an anastomosis of the finest arteries and veins. See his treatise "De Circulatione Sanguinis per fibras," Amsterdam, 1676.—W. S. D.
BLANKENBURG, Christian Friedrich von, a German writer, was born in the neighbourhood of Kolberg, 24th January, 1744, and died at Leipzig, 4th May, 1796. He is well known by his "Zusätze zu Sulzer's Theorie der schönen Künste," 1796-1798, in 3 vols.—K. E.
BLANKHOF, John Teunisz, a Dutch sea painter, was born at Alkmaaz in 1628. He studied under Tierling, Scheyenberg, and Everdingen. His touch was neat, light, and free, his seas were quiet and true. His best scenes were Italian sea-ports, with vessels rocking at their moorings.—W. T.
BLANQUI, Jerome Adolphe, an eminent French political economist, born at Nice in 1798. In 1825 his lectures on the History of Industrial Civilization among the Nations of Europe, attracted much attention, and after filling for a short period the office of director of the School of Commerce at Paris, he was appointed in 1833 to succeed Professor J. B. Say in the Conservatoire des Arts et Metiers. In 1851 he was charged by the institute of which he was a member to draw up an account of the exhibition of that year; and this task he accomplished in a series of articles in the Presse, remarkable for perspicuity and liveliness of style. He wrote "Histoire de l'Economie Politique en Europe, depuis les anciens jusqu'à nos jours," Paris, 1837, and some other works on subjects of political science. He died in 1864.—J. S., G.
BLANSERI, Sittorio, a Venetian painter who studied under the Cavalier Beaumont, succeeding him as court painter at Turin, being indeed considered his best pupil. He painted in
