4o6 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



my post than quit Tonquin just now." He had gone for rest to 

 the Doson Peninsula, a favorite resort of Europeans in Tonquin 

 for recreation, where he had. built him a small house in which 

 "he intended to rest when he should be tired." He suffered a 

 fresh attack of dysentery, from which he died in five days, on the 

 11th of November, 1886. On the announcement of his death in the 

 Academy of Sciences, addresses were made by President Jurien 

 de la Gravi^re and M. Vulpian, in which references were made on 

 the great services which he had rendered to science — especially in 

 his researches on the action of light on living organisms ; on the 

 physiology of respiration ; on the influence exercised on man, ani- 

 mals, plants, and ferments, by increased or diminished pressure of 

 atmospheric air, of carbonic acid, and of oxygen ; and on his the- 

 ory of the physiology of anaesthetics, and his efforts to render 

 absolutely inoffensive the inhalation of protoxide of nitrogen. 

 M. Bert, M. Vulpian added, was endowed with one of the most 

 open minds to be found, and his prodigious facility in work 

 permitted him to bring many tasks to the front. Most of his 

 researches were undertaken and carried to a good result while 

 he seemed to be wholly given up to labors of another kind. 

 What might we not yet have expected from his indefatigable 

 energy ? 



M. Bert was endowed with an extraordinary capacity for work. 

 Although in his latter days political life seemed to absorb his at- 

 tention, he found time to receive numerous visitors, to prepare 

 standard works, to write scientific articles, and to keep up a volu- 

 minous correspondence. While he was regarded by the general 

 public as harsh and authoritative, he was in private life a man of 

 charming simplicity and a most agreeable conversationalist. His 

 Wednesday evening receptions in his apartments in Paris were 

 most agreeable occasions to all who were privileged to participate 

 in them, and were marked by a free flow of conversation in which 

 the host was among the most lively talkers, and science always 

 held a prominent position. He had, says M. Gaston Tissandier, 

 an absolute faith in himself, and did not believe that his star 

 could be dimmed. He departed for Tonquin with the feeling 

 that he had a great duty to perform, and was glad to believe that 

 the difficulties in the way of his mission would yield before his 

 determination to triumph over them. 



Besides the volume on " Barometric Pressure," already referred 

 to, M. Bert's chief publications were " Revue des Travaux d'Ana- 

 tomie et de Physiologie publid en France pendant I'Annde 1864 " 

 (Review of the Works on Anatomy and Physiology published in 

 France during the Year 1864), 1866 ; " Notes d'Anatomie et Physi- 

 ologie compardes " (Notes on Comparative Anatomy and Physi- 

 ology), second series, 1867-'70 ; " Recherches sur la Mouvement de 



