Page:Proceedings of the Royal Society of London Vol 4.djvu/291

Rh operations of commerce : it is not one of the least distinctions of such a father, that his name and honours have been inherited by one whose profound acquirements in the most difficult branches of sci- ence have merited and received the highest honours which this So- ciety is able to confer.

In our foreign list we have to lament the loss of three of our most illustrious members, Blumenbach, Oibers, and Poisson.

John Friedrich Blumenbach was born on the 11th of May, 1752, at Gotha, where his father was Prorector of the Gymnasium. He was accustomed to attribute the formation of his taste for lite- rary history and the study of the natural sciences to the instructions and encouragement of Menz and Christ, two professors of Leipsig, who were friends and fellow-townsmen of his father. After study- ing for some time at Jena, he removed to Gottingen, for the pur- pose of completing his medical course, where he was very favour- ably noticed by Heyne and Michaelis, and more particularly by Blittner, Professor of Natural History, a great linguist, and a man of very extraordinary acquirements, whose museum of medals and natural history, when afterwards purchased by the University, he was employed to arrange. The skill and diligence which he showed in this employment, and the reputation of his professional and other attainments, secured him the appointment of Extraordinary Pro- fessor of Medicine in 1776, and of Ordinary Professor in 1778, a situation which he continued to hold for nearly sixty years.

His lectures comprehended Natural History, Comparative Anato- my, Physiology and Pathology, on all which subjects he published many valuable memoirs and other works, more particularly his admirable Manuals^ which have long enjoyed an extraordinary popularity, and which have been translated into nearly every great European language.

The first of this series of publications was the " Handbuch der Naturgeschichte," which appeared in 1779. In his " Institutiones Physiologicae," a work equally remarkable for the originality, pre- cision and clearness of its statements, which was published in 1787? he made known his views on the " bildungs trieb," or " Nisus for- mativus," which he had before announced in the Gottingen Trans- actions for 1785, and which he made the subject of a special work in 1789*. His " Specimens of the Physiology of Warm- and Cold- blooded Animals," appeared in 1789. In 1794^ he published in our Transactions, Observations on some Egyptian Mummies opened in London in 1792," with especial reference to the three distinct varie- ties of national physiognomy which appear amongst them. His " Handbuch der vergleichenden Anatomic" appeared in 1805, and showed how fully he already appreciated the important views of Cuvier, which elevated Comparative Anatomy from a merely de- scriptive science to one which was capable of the most instructive generalizations, and affording the means of distinguishing types and laws of formation, as well for different organs as for different classes of animals.


 * Ueber den Bildungs trieb.