April 25, 1919] 



SCIENCE 



391 



ion. " May I then express the hope." says 

 Professor O^deii, " that amona: you." please 

 consider that members of the Purdue Chapter 

 are now intended, " there may be some who 

 will find the subjects for their future experi- 

 mental work, not only in modem practical ap- 

 plications, in attempted solutions of the many 

 insistent problems of labor, industry and of 

 education, but in abstract research, without 

 thought of reward, carried on in the sole in- 

 terest of science, that the existence of the 

 university may be more fully justified and the 

 purpose of the Society of Sigrma Xi the better 

 realized." J. C. Arthur 



PuKDUE University, 

 Latayette, Ind. 



RAPHAEL BLANCHARD (18S&-1919) 



On February 8, 1919, Professor Raphael 

 Blanchard, of the Paris Medical Faculty, 

 the most eminent medical zoologist and med- 

 ical historian of modem France, died suddenly 

 of heart failure, at the comparatively early 

 age of sixty-one. 



Professor Blanchard was bom in the little 

 Tourainian village of Ste. Christophe, on 

 February 28, 1857. He was a great-grand- 

 nephew of the famous ballonist Jean Pierre 

 Blanchard, inventor of the parachute, and son 

 of Rene Blanchard, a dramatic poet, who 

 dying young, left behind him at least one 

 chef-d'ceuvre of the French stage, the little 

 play of " Pierre Guiffort." Literary and poetic 

 talent was a proper inheritance for the poet's 

 son, who became one of the most distin- 

 guished of medical scholars in recent times. 

 A taste for natural science drew young 

 Blanchard to Paris in 1875, where he became 

 attached, a year later, to the histological lab- 

 oratory of Ch. Robin and Georges Pouchet 

 at the Ecole des Hautes Etudes. The next 

 two years were spent in Germany, where he 

 studied embryology at Vienna and Leipzig 

 and comparative anatomy at Bonn. Upon his 

 return, he served for a long period as pre- 

 parateur for the physiologist Paul Bert, at the 

 Sorbonne, and took his medical degree in 

 1880, with a graduating thesis on anesthesia 



by nitrous oxide. At the ago of twenty-six 

 (1883), he obtained by concours, a professor- 

 ship in the Paris Medical Faculty. In the 

 meantime, he had published (1883) a little 

 book on the German universities, which was 

 destined to become well known among French 

 educators. Blanchard's scientific career was 

 deeply influenced by his German training, 

 from which he probably acquired his taste for 

 erudition and thoroughness in research. Up 

 to the present war, he was a prominent link 

 between French and German science. 



In 1883, in collaboration with Paul Bert, 

 he published a text-book on zoology. In the 

 same year he began his monumental treatise 

 on medical zoology (1885-90), which imme- 

 diately established itself as the authoritative 

 work on this subject. While the thematic 

 material is mainly parasitology, this work is 

 unquestionably the most comprehensive ever 

 written on the different animals injurious to 

 man. Its geographical and historical details 

 give it a unique place among medical books; 

 the bibliographies attest the wide learning 

 and erudition of the author. With the publi- 

 cation of this work, Blanchard's reputation 

 was established. In 1889, with Milne Edwards, 

 he organized the first international congress 

 of zoology.' In 1894, he was admitted to the 

 portals of the Academy of Medicine, an un- 

 usual honor for a man of thirty-seven. In 

 1897, he succeeded Professor Baillon in the 

 chair of medical zoology in tlie Paris Faculty, 

 and, in 1907, at his request, this chair became 

 specialized as the chair of parasitology. Blan- 

 chard made innumerable contributions to 

 parasitology, principally at the Societe Zool- 

 ogique de France, of which he was one of the 

 founders (1876), and for twenty years secre- 

 tary; and later in the Archives de Parasito- 

 logie, the most important literary organ of 

 this science, which he founded in 1898 and of 

 which he remained editor until his death. 

 This periodical is everywhere informed by the 

 erudite genius of its editor. To it Blanchard 

 contributed most of his original researches, 

 his many biographies of great parasitologists, 



1 Blanchard was present at the meeting of the 

 Congress in Boston, Mass., August 21, 1907. 



