Flourens, Marie

JEAN PIERRE, a French physiologist, B. at Maureilhan, 1794, known as one of the most distinguished modern savans, and as the author of many most learned works in physiological science. He was Profe or of Comparative Physiology in the Museum of Natural History in Paris, Perpetual Secretary of the Academy of Sciences in the same city, a member of the English Royal Society, and of the academies of Edinburgh, Stockholm, Munich, Madrid, Turin, and of almost every other capital in Christen dom. In 1837 he sat as deputy for the arrondi ement of Bezières, but took no active part in politics; in 1840, was elected member of the Académie Française; in 1846, was made a peer of France, and in 1855, Profe or in the College of France. Neither honors nor revolutions, however, interrupted his studies and researches as a physiologist. One of his best-known works is Duration of Human Life, and the Quantity of Life on the Globe, published in 1854. F. considers that he has discovered the physical law of the duration of life, which is a multiple of five in respect to the time of the growth of the animal. Thus, if the horse attains his full growth at the age of five-by full growth meaning when once the bones and epiphyses are united he should live to the age of twenty-five; and if man attains his full growth at the age of twenty, he ought to live a hundred years; but that, in man, in order to have any chance of attaining the limit of the allotted period, it is nece ary, above all, to lead a "sober life;" by which he means "good conduct, an existence always occupied, labor, study, moderation, sobriety in all things." He was promoted Grand Officer of the Legion of Honor, April 24, 1845, and made member of the municipal Council of Paris in 1864. Among his most important works, besides the above-quoted, we may mention his Recherches Expérimentales sur les Propriétés et les Fonctions du Système Nerveux dans les Animaux Vertébrés (1824); with a supplementary volume, entitled, Expériences sur le Système Nerveux (1825); Recherches sur le Développe ment des Os et des Dents (1842); Anatomie Générale de la Peau et des Membranes Muqueuses (1843) - a work tending to demonstrate the unity of the human race, by showing that there are no e ential differences between the structure of the skin in the negro and the European; and his Théorie Expérimentale de la Formation des Os (1847), perhaps the most celebrated of his works. Among his smaller and popular works are his Analyse Raisonnée des Travauz de Georges Cuvier (1841); Buffon, His to ire de ses Idées et de ses Travaux (1844); De l'In stinct et de l'Intelligence des Animaux (1841); Examen de la Phrénologie (1842); His to ire de la Découverte de la Circulation du Sang (1854); Examen du livre de M. Da rien sur l'Origine des Espèces (1864); and his Eloges His toriquesa beautifully written series of scientific biographies. D. 1867.