70 HISTORICAL EULOCtIUM 



disturbing the whole nation ; but hardly was his book com- 

 pleted, when he found himself charged with one of the de- 

 partments of the mayoralty of Paris. This office, as is well 

 known, was then divided into several departments, and the 

 charge of the Parisian Hospitals fell upon M. de Jussieu, on 

 which occasion he published his Report on those institutions, 

 a description of labour well adapted to bring the sciences 

 into high respect, and in which our author had been preceded 

 by only one member of the Academy, a man whose name 

 will ever be venerated among his fellow creatures, the illus- 

 trious and unfortunate Bailly. 



In 1793, the Jardin des Plantes was new organized, and 

 received the name of the Museum d'Histoire Nutnrelle. Daii- 

 benton was its first Director, and ISI. de Jussieu succeeded 

 him. In these stormy days, M. de Jussieu devoted himself 

 wholly to the charge of this noble establishment, with which 

 stand so closely connected the honour of his name and almost 

 all his family recollections. From the very commencement 

 of the Institute, lie naturally made a part of it, and was one 

 of the first Presidents of the new Academy of Sciences; hold- 

 ing the Vice-Presidentship on the very year which was dis- 

 tinguished by Napoleon being President. In 1804, the Chair 

 of Materia Medica in the Faculty of Medicine, having become 

 vacant by the decease of Peyrilhe, he offered himself to fill 

 it, and all the other candidates withdrew. When he became 

 Professor, lie took as the basis of his lessons, the fruitful 

 principle of the agreement of the properties of plants with 

 their botanical affinities,— a principle which his earliest 

 labours had pointed out; a novel application of the Natural 

 Method, and the most appropriate of all measures, perhaps, 

 for extending the influence of Materia Medica, M. de Jussieu 

 was nominated to the council of the University in 1808. 

 During the latter half of his life, his attention was chiefly 

 occupied in the task of preparing a second edition of his 

 great work. Unfortunately, his strength diminished as the 

 scientific materials increased, so that he left only fragments 

 of this noble performance ; these portions, however, are so 



