Historical Eloge of M. Vmiquelin, 215 



Mofe recently, the comparative examination which he under- 

 took, De la Coquille de VCEuf^ des Excremem de la Poule et de 

 la sulistance dont elle se nourrit '^y went to overthrow the hypo- 

 theses which assumed that the production of the calcareous shell 

 was owing to the vital power of animals. Mr Brande had 

 .proved that the blood does not acquire its colour from any com- 

 bination of irpn, but from a pecuhar animal principle^; and 

 M. Vauquelin pointed out the most direct method of obtaining 

 this principle in a separate state ^ 



Physiology is indebted to him for an analysis of hair, and the 

 very complicated principles which enter into its composition, and 

 occasion its different colours ^ ; and likewise for an analysis of 

 chyle, in which he detected a part of the principle to the sup- 

 port of which this liquid is subservient in the animal economy ^ 



The singular relations which he discovered along with Four- 

 fjroy between the composition of the sperm of animals and the 

 fecundating pollen of plants, gave rise to considerations not 

 destitute of interest ; and the same may be said of his researches 

 Sur h Mucus Animal ^. 



During his extensive researches on Urine and Calculi, of 

 which we have already spoken in the eloge of Fourcroy, M. 

 Vauquelin discovered the remarkable fact, that the acid of ben- 

 ispin, the produce of a foreign tree, exists perfectly formed in 

 the urine of the herbivorous quadrupeds of our own country. 

 Thus the intestines, and a circulation through the kidneys, are 

 employed in an animal to combine the gaseous elements, in the 

 same order, and in the same proportion, as the roots, the trunk, 

 and the fruit of a tree. 



At the time of his admission into the medical faculty as doc- 

 tor of medicine, he selected as the subject of his thesis an ana- 

 ' Ann. du Mus. t. xviii. p. 1G4 — Ann. de Chim. t. Ixxxi. p. 304. 

 ,* Ann. de Chim. t. xxix. p. 3. — Bulletin de la Soc. Philom. 1798, p. 164, 

 ' Chemical Researches on the Blood, and some other Animal Fluids, 

 Fhilos. Trans, of Lond. v. cii. p. 90. 



• Ann. de Chim. et de Physique, t. i. p. 9. 



* M^m. de Tlnstitut, t. viii. p. 214 — Ann. de Chim. t. Iviii. p. 41. 

 ^ Ann. du Mus. t. xviii. p. 240 Ann. de Chim. t. Ixxxi. p. 113. 



^ Jounial de Phys. t. xxxix. p. 38 Ann. de Chim. t. ix. p. e4, et 



t. Ixiv. p. 6 — Ann. du Mus. t. v. p. 417, et t. x. p. 169 — M^m. de 4^Institut, 

 t. viii. p. 42. 



