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Rh present this medal to you in the name of the scientific men of the world. . . . All of us here recognize your merits; we all know why our appeal for homage to be given to you has been so widely answered. The first memoir you read to the Academy was in 1823. Since that time you have unceasingly continued to enlarge the field of science by your personal researches, and to teach, by speech or the pen, your rivals first, then the generations which grew up at your side. These labors, this teaching, then, have continued for nearly sixty years. And, to crown your work, you have collected into a single book the immense treasures of knowledge amassed by this long and noble labor. Your 'Lessons' present a complete picture of the past and present of the anatomical and physiological sciences, with their infinite details mebracingembracing [sic] and co-ordinating general ideas, always as precise as elevated. The book marks a real epoch in the history of these sciences. It is from this time for us, it will be for our posterity, what the writings of Haller were for his contemporaries and for posterity. This is what even mere strangers to your habitual studies comprehend; and this is why we are authorized to present this medal to you in the name of the whole world."

M. Dumas said: "The Academy beholds in you the guardian of the noble traditions of the learned and the most authorized representative of French science. With passion for the truth, the boldness of a strong mind, and the prudence of a wise one, you have drawn a complete picture of life in all its aspects, as a consummate anatomist, as a sharp-sighted physiologist, as a physician, and as a skilled chemist. With you, physiology, in its highest and widest acceptation, has entered permanently into the study of the classification of beings. You have had the rare happiness, my dear friend, to begin young, to pursue in your maturity, and to terminate in the fullness of your vigor, a work which will remain a monument."

The list of his works, said M. Gaston Tissandier, in his notice of them in "La Nature," in May, 1881, "has not closed, for the eminent naturalist, in spite of his years, preserves all the ardor and activity of youth; without allowing himself rest, he consecrates all his efforts to scientific progress, offering one of the finest examples it is possible to cite of a magnificent career incessantly fertilized by labor and genius."

His son, M. A. Milne-Edwards, is pursuing the same course of research with the father, and displays in it the same characteristic activity and thoroughness.