170 Biographical Account of [Sepr. 
original profession. He had published in 1774 a translation, with 
notes, of Model’s Physical Recreations, a work in which the phar- 
maceutical preparations occupy a greater space than the other parts 
of the natural sciences: and in 1775 he published an edition of the 
Hydraulic Chemistry of Lagaraze, which is scarcely any thing else 
than a collection of receipts to obtain the principles of medicinal 
substances without altering them too much by fire. Probably he 
would not have remained a stranger to the great progress which 
chemistry made at this period, had not the disputes, of which we 
have given an account, deprived him of the laboratory of the Inva- 
lids.” We may say likewise that his chemical examination of milk 
and of the blood, along with our associate M. Deyeux, constitute 
models of the application of chemistry to organized bodies and their 
modifications. 
In the first of these works the authors compare with woman’s 
milk that of the domestic animals which we chiefly employ ; and in 
the second they examine the alterations produced ‘in the blood by 
inflammatory, putrid, and scorbutic diseases—alterations often 
searcely sensible, and far from explaining the disorders which they 
occasion, or at least which they accompany. 
We have seen above how Parmentier, being by pretty singular 
accidents deprived of the active superintendance of the Invalids, 
had been stopped in the natural line of his advancement. He had 
too much merit to allow this injustice to continue long. Govern~- 
ment employed him in different circumstances as a military apothe- 
eary; and when in 1788 a consulting council of physicians and 
surgeons was organized for the army, the Minister wished to place 
him there as apothecary; but Bayen was then alive, and Parmentier 
was the first to represent that he could not take his seat above his 
master. He was therefore named assistant to Bayen. ‘This insti- 
tution, like many others, was suppressed during the period of revo~ 
lutionary anarchy, an epoch during which even medical subordina- 
tion was rejected. But necessity obliged them soon to re-establish 
it under the names of Commission and Council of Health for the 
Armies; and Parmentier, whom the reign of. terror had for a time 
driven from Paris, was speedily placed in it. 
He showed in this situation the same zeal as in all others; and 
the hospitals of the army were prodigiously indebted to his care. 
He neglected nothiog—instructions, repeated orders to his inferiors, 
pressing solicitations to men in authority, We have seen him within 
these few years deploring the absolute neglect in which a Govern- 
ment, occupied in conquering, and not in preserving, left the 
asylums of the victims of war. 
We ought to bear the most striking testimony of the cares which 
fe took of the young persons employed under his orders, the friendly 
manner in which he received them, encouraged them, and rewarded 
them. His protection extended to them at what distance soever 
they were carried; and we know more than one who was indebted 
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