Edmond Louis Alexis Dubois-Crance

DUBOIS-CRANCE, EDMOND LOUIS ALEXIS French revolutionary, born at Charleville, was elected deputy to the states-general in 1789 by the third estate of Vitry-le-Francois. At the Constituent assembly, of which he was named secretary in Nov. 1789, he worked for the replacement of the old military system, with its caste distinctions and its merce naries, by national guards open to all citizens. In his report on Dec. 12, 1789, he adumbrated the idea of conscription. He secured the Assembly's vote that any slave who touched French soil should become free. Elected to the Convention by the department of the Ardennes, he sat among the Montagnards. In the trial of Louis XVI. he voted for death without delay or appeal. On Feb. 21, I 793, he was named president of the Convention. He composed a remarkable report on the army, recommending the rapid advance ment of the lower officers, and the fusion of the volunteers with the veteran troops. In Aug. Dubois-Crance was designated "representative on mission" to the army of the Alps, to direct the siege of Lyons. Accused of lack of energy, he was replaced by G. Couthon (q.v.). On his return he was excluded from the Jacobin club at the instance of Robespierre. He took part in the revolu tion of 9th Thermidor of the year II., directed against Robes pierre. He was one of the committee of five which had to oppose the Royalist insurrection of Vendemiaire (see FRENCH REVOLU TION), and was named a member of the committee of public safety, then much reduced in importance. After the Convention, under the Directory, Dubois-Crance was a member of the council of the Five Hundred, and was appointed inspector general of infantry; then, in 1799, minister of war. Opposed to the coup d'etat of the 18th Brumaire, he lived in retirement during the con sulate and the empire. He died at Rethel on June 29, 1814.

Among the numerous writings of Dubois-Crance may be noticed his Observations sur la constitution militaire, ou bases du travail propose au comite militaire. See H. F. T. Jung, Dubois de Crance. L'armee et la Revolution, 1789-1794 (2 vols. 1884) .

DU BOIS-REYMOND, EMIL

German phys iologist, was born in Berlin on Nov. 7, 1818. His father belonged to Neuchatel, his mother was of Huguenot descent, and he spoke of himself as "being of pure Celtic blood." He studied geology at Bonn, then anatomy and physiology at Berlin under Johannes Muller. Du Bois-Reymond's graduation thesis on "Electric Fishes," was the beginning of a long series of investigations on animal electricity. The results of these inquiries were published in his Untersucliungen iiber tierische Elektrizitat (2 vols. 1848 84) This great work may be regarded under two aspects. On the one hand, it is a record of the exact determination and approximative analysis of the electric phenomena presented by living beings. Du Bois-Reymond, beginning with the imperfect observations of Mat teucci, built up this branch of science by inventing or improving methods, by devising new instruments of observation or by adapt ing old ones. On the other hand, the volumes in question contain an exposition of a theory. In them Du Bois-Reymond developed the view that a living tissue, such as muscle, might be regarded as composed of a number of electric molecules, of molecules hav ing certain electric properties, and that the electric behaviour of the muscle as a whole in varying circumstances was the outcome of the behaviour of these native electric molecules. It may perhaps be said that this theory has not stood the test of time so well as have Du Bois-Reymond's other more simple deductions from ob served facts. It was early attacked by Ludimar Hermann, who maintained that a living untouched tissue, such as a muscle, is not the subject of electric currents so long as it is at rest, is isoelectric in substance, and therefore need not be supposed to be made up of electric molecules, all the electric phenomena which it manifests being due to internal molecular changes associated with activity or injury. Although most subsequent observers have ranged them selves on Hermann's side, it must nevertheless be admitted that Du Bois-Reymond's theory was of great value if only as a working hypothesis, and that as such it greatly helped in the advance of science.

For many years, Du Bois-Reymond exerted a great influence as a teacher. In 1858, upon the death of Johannes Muller, the chair of anatomy and physiology was divided into a chair of human and comparative anatomy, which was given to K. B. Reichert (1811 1883 ), and a chair of physiology, which naturally fell to Du Bois Reymond. In 1851 he was elected to the Academy of Sciences of Berlin, and in 1867 became its perpetual secretary. From to 1877 Du Bois-Reymond, with Reichert edited the Archiv fur Anatomie, founded by Muller. His principal work, other than that on electricity already cited, is Gesammelte Abhandlungen zur allgemeinen Muskel- and Nervenphysik (2 vols. 1875-77). Among his occasional papers may be mentioned Uber die Grenzen der Naturerkenntnis (1872; 8th ed. 1898). He died on Nov. 26, 1896.

See J. Burdon Sanderson in Nature (vol. iv. i897).