Deceased Fellows : — Professor Blumenbach. 71 



in this employment, and the reputation of his professional and other 

 attainments, secured him the appointment of Extraordinary Pro- 

 fessor of Medicine in 1776, and of Ordinary Professor in 1778, a 

 situation which he continued to hold for nearly sixty years. 



His lectures comprehended Natural History, Comparative Anato- 

 my, Physiology and Pathology, on all which subjects he published 

 many valuable memoirs and other works, more particularly his 

 admirable Manuals, which have long enjoyed an extraordinary 

 popularity, and which have been translated into nearly every great 

 European language. 



The first of this series of publications was the " Handbuch der 

 Naturgeschichte," which appeared in 1779. In his " Institutiones 

 Physiologicae," a work equally remarkable for the originality, pre- 

 cision and clearness of its statements, which was published in 1787, 

 he made known his views on the " bildungs trieb," or " Nisus for- 

 raativus," which he had before announced . in the Gottingen Trans- 

 actions for 1785, and which he made the subject of a special work 

 in 1789*. His " Specimens of the Physiology of Warm- and Cold- 

 blooded Animals," appeared in 1789. In 1794; he published in our 

 Transactions, " Observations on some Egj^ptian Mummies opened in 

 London in 1792," with especial reference to the three distinct varie- 

 ties of national physiognomy which appear amongst them. His 

 " Handbuch der vergleichenden Anatomic" appeared in 1805, and 

 showed how fully he already appreciated the important views of 

 Cuvier, which elevated Comparative Anatomy from a merely de- 

 scriptive science to one which was capable of the most instructive 

 generalizations, and affording the means of distinguishing types and 

 laws of formation, as well for different organs as for different classes 

 of animals. 



The term nisus for mativus was employed by Blumenbach to denote 

 that vital power which is innate in all living organized bodies, and in 

 active operation during the whole period of their vital existence, 

 by which they are controlled and modified with reference to a speci- 

 fied end ; it is that power by which the organizable matter of every 

 individual being assumes, at its conception, its allotted form ; which 

 form is also capable of successive modifications by nutrition, accord- 

 ing to tiie purpose for which it is destined by the Author of Nature, 

 as well as of the reparation (within prescribed limits) of the injuries 

 which it may have received. The announcement of this principle 

 was received with extraordinary favour by physiologists, though it 

 differed in little more than in name from the vis esseutialis of the 

 celebrated Wolff. It will be found to have formed the basis of some 

 of his important speculations. 



Blumenbach's well-known collection of the crania of the different 

 races of mankind was made with a view to their more accurate 

 classification, and gave rise to some of his more celebrated pub- 

 lications f. According to his ultimate views, he would make the 



* Ueber den Bildungs trieb. 



t Collcctio Decad. vi. craniorum ilivcrsarum gentium tabulis 60 aeneis 

 iiiuatrata: 1790 — 1820. Dc generis humani varictatc nativa : 1795. 



