Augustin Pyramus De CandoUe. 253 



The splendid anatomical and pathological museum which he had 

 collected and created entirely by his own industry and labour, and 

 chiefly within the lew last years of his life, at a period when the ar- 

 dour of most men for scientific pursuits begins to flag, consists of 

 nearly three thousand preparations, each most exquisitely worked 

 out, and the whole admirably arranged. The injected preparations 

 are of unrivalled beauty, and show that he had acquired a facility 

 and perfection in the art of anatomical injection quite peculiar to 

 himself. 



He was latterlj^ engaged in an experimental investigation on the 

 functions of the different parts of the brains of the lower animals. 

 His health had suddenly declined a short time before his death, which 

 happened on the 12th of February, 1841. 



Sir Astley was left a widower in June 1827; the year following, 

 he married the daughter of John Jones, Esq., of Derry Ormond, in 

 Cardiganshire. He has left no children, and has bequeathed by his 

 will the whole of his museum to his nephew, Mr. Bransby Cooper, 

 and he has also left some property in the funds (namely, £4000 three 

 per cent, consols), of which the interest is to be given as a triennial 

 prize for the best original Essay or Treatise on given subjects in 

 Anatomy, Physiology or Surgery, to be awarded by the Physicians 

 and Surgeons of Guy's Hospital *. 



Augustin Pyramus De Candolle, one of the most distin- 

 guished botanists of the present age, was born at Geneva on the 4th 

 of February, 1778. The same year is also memorable by the death 

 of Linnaeus, the father of modern botany, which took place about 

 three weeks before the birth of one, who was destined to emulate 

 his fame in the same department of natural history. When seven 

 years of age, De Candolle sustained a serious attack of hydrocepha- 

 lus, a disease generally so fatal in its tendency, that the present af- 

 fords a remarkable instance of complete recovery, after life had 

 been, for many days, despaired of. 



Possessing a remarkable facility of writing verses both in French 

 and Latin, and having at the same time a keen relish for the study 

 of history, young De Candolle at first resolved to make literature 

 his profession ; aspiring, as the summit of his ambition, to the fame 

 of being a great historian. But this dream of his youth was effaced 

 by a new taste, imbibed during a residence in the country, where 

 he amused himself witii examining the plants of the neighbourhood, 

 and with writing their descriptions, before he had even opened a 

 single book on botany. The few pages he there read of the volume 

 of nature were sufficient to captivate his aff"ections ibr the pursuit 

 which henceforth became the dominant passion of his life. Tlie 

 botanical lectures of Professor Vaucher, which he attended in 1794, 

 increased his ardour, and confirmed him in the resolution he had 

 formed, of devoting himself to the cultivation of botany as his pri- 

 mary object, to whicli all other sciences, as well as branches of lite- 



• The greater part of this memoir of Sir Astloy Cooper, and especially 

 the account of his early life, lias been extracted from Pettigrew's ' Medical 

 Portrait Gallery.' 



