SKETCH OF HENRI MILNE-EDWARDS. 549 



present this medal to you in the name of the scientifie 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 me- 

 bracing and co-ordinating general ideas, always as j)recise 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 represent- 

 ative 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 com- 

 plete 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 en- 

 tered permanently into the study of the classification of beings. You 

 have had the rare happiness, my dear friend, to begin young, to pur- 

 sue 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 re- 

 search with the father, and displays in it the same characteristic activ- 

 ity and thoroughness. 



