pense in the execution of such engravings as were best calculated to afford instruction, he invariably published them at a low price.
His publications relate chiefly to the following subjects, namely, the anatomy and treatment of the various kinds of hernia; of aneu- rism ; of spina bifida ; of dislocations and fractures ; of exostoses ; of encysted tumors ; the extraction of calculi from the bladder ; the structure and diseases of the breast and of the testis. Among the last subjects to which he had particularly turned his attention was the structure and functions of the thymus gland.
The splendid anatomical and pathological museum which he had collected and created entirely by his own industry and labour, and chiefly within the few last years of his life, at a period when the ar- dour of most men for scientific pursuits begins to flag, consists of nearly three thousand preparations, each most exquisitely worked out, and the whole admirably arranged. The injected preparations are of unrivalled beauty, and show that he had acquired a facility and perfection in the art of anatomical injection quite peculiar to himself.
He was latterly engaged in an experimental investigation on the functions of the different parts of the brains of the lower animals. His health had suddenly declined a short time before his death, which happened on the 12th of February, 1841,
Sir Astley was left a widower in June 1827; the year following, he married the daughter of John Jones, Esq., of Derry Ormond, in Cardiganshire. He has left no children, and has bequeathed by his will the whole of his museum to his nephew, Mr. Bransby Cooper, and he has also left some property in the funds (namely, £4000 three per cent, consols), of which the interest is to be given as a triennial prize for the best original Essay or Treatise on given subjects in Anatomy, Physiology or Surgery, to be awarded by the Physicians and Surgeons of Guy's Hospital[1].
Augustin Pyramus De Candolle, one of the most distinguished botanists of the present age, was born at Geneva on the 4th of February, 1778. The same year is also memorable by the death of Linneeus, the father of modern botany, which took place about three weeks before the birth of one, who was destined to emulate his fame in the same department of natural history. When seven years of age, De Candolle sustained a serious attack of hydrocephalus, a disease generally so fatal in its tendency, that the present affords a remarkable instance of complete recovery, after life had been, for many days, despaired of.
Possessing a remarkable facility of writing verses both in French and Latin, and having at the same time a keen relish for the study of history, young De Candolle at first resolved to make literature his profession ; aspiring, as the summit of his ambition, to the fame
- ↑ The greater part of this memoir of Sir Astley Cooper, and especially the account of his early life, has been extracted from Pettigrew's 'Medical Portrait Gallery.'
