568 CHAKLES ADOLPIIK WURTZ. 



largely to place physiology in its proper position among the experi- 

 mental sciences. 



A glauce through the annual reports on the progress of Physiology 

 shows that the name of Valentin appears several times in nearly 

 every year as a contributor to the periodical literature of this science. 

 In addition to these labors, he found time to write a text-book of 

 physiology, which was translated into English by Dr. Brixton. 



His latest work seems to have been a series of articles entitled 

 " Histiologische and Physiologische Studien, " the publication of which 

 in the Zeitschrift fiir Biologic continued as late as 1882. 



CHARLES ADOLPHE WURTZ. 



The sad intelligence of the death of this distinguished French 

 chemist, on the 12th of May, comes to us by telegraph, just as we are 

 completing this Report, and we have no time for an extended notice. 

 He was not elected a Foreign Honorary Member of this Academy 

 until the last annual meeting, so that his name has not yet appeared 

 on our printed list. His death, following so closely that of Dumas, 

 leaves a vacancy in the ranks of the French chemists which cannot soon 

 be filled. 



Wurtz was born at Strasburg, November 16, 1817, where he was 

 educated. He became a student in the chemical department of the 

 medical school of his native city in 1839, and took his degree there in 

 1843. Soon after he moved to Paris, where he began his chemical 

 career as assistant to Dumas, and first acquired an independent posi- 

 tion as Professor at the Agricultural Institute at Versailles. After 

 the death of Orfila, in 1853, and the retirement of Dumas, in 1854, 

 their chairs were united in that of Medical Chemistry, and given to 

 Wurtz. He became Dean of the Medical Faculty in 1866, and sub- 

 sequently was elected Professor of Chemistry at the Sorbonne. 



It is, however, with the Medical School in Paris that "Wurtz is 

 chiefly identified, and his investigations were carried on in the labora- 

 tory of that institution. Under the influence of Laurent and (Tcrhardt, 

 Wurtz's studies were early directed towards organic chemistry; and 

 to him is due, in no small measure, the development of modern struc- 

 tural chemistry. Almost at the outset of his career, he discovered the 

 remarkable reaction by which the primary amines are produced from 

 the cyanates of the alcohol radicals, and thus gave prominence and 

 greater definiteness to the ammonia type of chemical compounds. 



