Xlvi PBOCEEDINGS OF THE 



venerated M. Dmneril, who died on the lith of August, 1.860, after 

 a short illness, at the advanced age of 86, universally honoured 

 and beloved. 



Andre-Marie-Constant Dumeril, Ileniber of the Institute and 

 Commander in the Legion of Honour, was born at Amiens in the 

 year 1774. At an early age he devoted himself to the study of 

 Medicine, and so soon distinguished himself, that in 1793, when 

 only 19, he was appointed Prevot d' Anatomic at Eouen. In 1798 

 he was admitted to the degree of Doctor of Medicine in the Uni- 

 versity of Paris, and w^as nominated Chef des Travaux Anatomiques 

 in that Capital, an ofG.ce for which he had competed successfully 

 with Dupuytren. In 1801 he was raised to the chair of Anatomy 

 at the Faculty of Medicine, which in 1822 he resigned for that 

 of Physiology, to be in turn exchanged, in 1830, for that of 

 internal Pathology, which he held till his death. In the early part 

 of his career he appears to have been also actively engaged in the 

 practice of Medicine, and in 1804 was appointed by the Emperor 

 Napoleon, in company with M. Desgenettes, on a mission to study 

 the yellow fever in the South of Spain, — a dangerous duty, to which 

 he devoted himself with the zeal and energy which he displayed 

 on all occasions and on all subjects. 



But notwithstanding these professional occupations, M. Dumeril' s 

 attention was from the first principally directed towards zoolo- 

 gical science, to various departments of which his chief works alone 

 belong. 



In 1800, under the direction of Cuvier, he assisted in the editing 

 of the first two volumes of the ' Lemons d' Anatomic Comparee ' of 

 that great anatomist, w^ho never failed on all occasions to acknow- 

 ledge the assistance he had derived from his able and industrious 

 coadjutor ; by whom also he was succeeded in the chair of Natural 

 History in the Ecole Centrale of the Pantheon*. 



In 1802 he was deputed by M. de Lacepede to deliver the lectures 

 on Herpetology and Ichthj^ology at the Jardin des Plantes, a 

 mission which M. Dumeril continued to fulfil for more than fifty 

 years, at first as the substitute for M. de Lacepede, and affcerw^ards 

 as titular Professor of those subjects. To his zeal and industry 

 in this office, not only is the Museum indebted for the creation 

 both of the best collection of objects belonging to Herpetology 



* In a notice of M. Dumeril's woi-ks, it should not be omitted that he was 

 perhaps the fii'st to perceive the analogy of structure which exists between the 

 vertebrae and the bones of the cranium ; a theory which for the last forty years 

 lias exercised the ingenuity of so many. 



