166 
Obituary. 
(  Am,  Jour.  Pharm. 
I     March,  1888. 
holding  among  other  colonial  offices  that  of  a  commissary  in  the  army.  Edu- 
cated in  Friends'  schools  from  his  early  years,  William  Biddle  has  been  identi- 
fied with  the  educational  and  benevolent  institutions  of  this  city. 
In  1829  he  opened  the  drug  store  at  the  corner  of  11th  and  Arch  streets,  and 
was  very  fearful  lest  he  had  made  a  mistake  in  going  too  far  into  the  suburbs. 
He  was  elected  a  member  of  the  Philadelphia  College  of  Pharmacy  Sept.  19, 1826. 
Associated  with  his  son,  John  William,  he  continued  till  1857,  when  he  re- 
tired and  devoted  his  whole  time  to  the  Mine  Hill  and  Schuylkill  Haven  Rail- 
road Company,  of  which  he  was  chosen  secretary,  and  later,  in  1883,  was  ap- 
pointed president.  In  1834,  and  for  many  years  following,  he  was  a  director 
and  afterward  a  controller  of  the  public  schools.  For  more  than  forty  years  he 
was  a  manager  of  the  Magdalen  Asylum.  lu  1840  he  was  chosen  a  director  of 
Girard  College,  and  as  a  member  of  the  Committee  of  Instruction  and  House- 
hold, had  largely  to  do  with  the  first  organization  of  the  College,  which  was 
opened  for  scholars  January  1st,  1847.  In  1849  he  was  elected  a  manager  of  the 
Pennsylvania  Hospital,  a  post  which  he  continued  to  hold  for  a  period  of  nearly 
thirty-eight  years,  the  last  fourteen  of  which  he  was  chosen  president  of  the 
Board. 
Although  his  health  had  been  failing  for  several  months,  his  last  illness  was 
very  short,  and  he  died  at  his  residence  in  Germantown  on  the  7th  day  of 
June,  1887,  in  the  82nd  year  of  his  age. 
Blessed  with  a  cheerful  disposition  and  with  a  heart  overflowing  with  benev- 
olence, it  was  his  delight  to  assist  by  a  kind  word  or  timely  advice  those  who 
might  be  in  need  of  it,  and  much  of  his  time  was  devoted  to  labors  in  connec- 
tion with  institutions  for  the  alleviation  of  the  sufferings  of  his  fellow  beings. 
Dr.  Camille  Jean  Marie  Mehu  died  in  Paris,  France,  November  29th,  at  the  age 
of  52  years.  He  was  born  and  educated  at  Dijon,  in  1858  became  assistant 
pharmacist  in  the  central  pharmacy  of  the  civil  hospitals,  subsequently  was  in 
a  similar  capacity  at  the  Midi  Hospital,  and  in  1862  received  the  appointment 
of  Chief  Apothecary  in  the  Necker  Hospital.  In  1865  he  graduated  in  medi- 
cine, and  in  1880  was  elected  a  member  of  the  Academy  of  Medicine  in  the  sec- 
tion of  pharmacy,  and  President  of  the  Pharmaceutical  Society  of  Paris.  He 
was  the  author  of  numerous  essays  on  pharmaceutical  and  chemical  subjects,  a 
number  of  which  will  be  found  in  previous  volumes  of  this  Journal.  Of  late 
years  his  investigations  were  especially  dhected  towards  pathological  subjects, 
for  which  his  position  as  chief  apothecary  of  the  Charity  Hospital  afforded 
ample  material.  He  translated  Sutton's  " Volumetric  Analysis"  into  French, 
and  was  for  many  years  one  of  the  editors  of  the  Journal  de  Fharrnacie  et  de 
Chimie.  At  the  Fourth  International  Pharmaceutical  Congress,  held  in  St. 
Petersburg,  in  1874,  Dr.  Mehu  was  one  of  the  Secretaries,  and  as  the  represen- 
tative of  the  Paris  Society  of  Pharmacy  submitted  the  draft  of  a  Universal  Phar- 
macopoeia, elaborated  by  that  society.  At  the  fifth  congress  held  in  London  in 
1881  he  was  appointed  a  member  of  the  International  Pharmacopoeia  Commis- 
sion, and  he  participated  also  actively  in  the  deliberations  of  the  sixth  congress 
held  at  Brussels  in  1885. 
Dr.  Mehu's  labors  for  the  elevation  of  pharmacy  secured  for  him  not  only 
the  esteem  of  the  pharmacists  of  France,  but  his  merits  were  deservedly  recog- 
nized abroad,  and  many  foreign  societies  honored  him  by  electing  him  to  mem- 
bership ;  among  others  the  Philadelphia  College  of  Pharmacy  had  made  him 
