ANNALS 



OP 



PHILOSOPHY. 



JANUARY, 1818. 



Article I. 



Biographical Account of Delametherie.* 



JEAN CLAUDE DELAMETHERIE was born at Clayette, 

 a small town of Maconnois, on Sept. 4, 1743. His father was 

 a physician ; and we are informed that the medical profession 

 had been exercised by his ancestors for several successive gene- 

 rations ; the family bore a respectable rank, and was possessed 

 of considerable property. From a very early period of his life, 

 the subject of our memoir exhibited marks of a peculiar cha- 

 racter : he took no interest in childish sports ; but preferred 

 reading books of a grave and abstruse kind, and was often ab- 

 sorbed in profound reflection. At the age of 15 he was sent to 

 Thiers, in Auvergne, for the purpose of receiving instruction in 

 the belles lettres ; and at 18 went to prosecute his studies in 

 Paris. As he had an elder brother, who was to occupy his 

 father's profession, Jean Claude was destined for the church, and 

 with this intention was placed in the seminary of St. Louis ; but 

 in consequence of his brother's death, he renounced the study 

 of theology, and entered upon that of medicine in his 22d year. 

 After spending five years in acquiring a knowledge of his pro- 

 fession, he returned to his father's house, and engaged in the 

 practice of it ; but it would appear that he was never fond of the 

 employment, and after some time abandoned it in disgust. He 

 assigned as his motive the uncertainty of the art, and the very 

 little accurate knowledge which it is in our power to acquire 



» Tbe fncli which form the basis of this account are taken from an elaborate 

 paper by M. IJlainville, in the Journ. tie Phys. t. Ixxxv. p. 78. 



Vol. XI. N° I. A 



