derot, Daubenton, Portal, and other distinguished characters in the literary and scientific world. Re. turning to his own country, with recruited spirits, he applied himself with fresh ardour to his favourite pursuits, and, aiming at more comprehensive views of the animal kingdom, occupied himself in pursuing the analogies which connect its several departments, and in tracing the successive links of that extended chain, by which the different orders of beings are united in one continued series of gradation. A tour through Germany, at a later period of his life, brought him acquainted with many treasures in Natural History, with which that country abounds. The anatomical preparations of Kerkringun, and the observatory of Tycho Brahe•at Hamburgh • the col lections of Natural History of Taube and Desrogues at Zell, and the superb cabinet of antiquities of the Count Walmoden at Hanover, particularly attracted his attention ; and he explored with the eye of a geologist the volcanic district of Camel. He formed also the acquaintance of Zimmerman, Soemmerring, and other eminent physicians. The following year he visited Prussia, and was presented to the great Frederick, who received him at Potsdam, with much affability and respect, conversing with him for a long time on the subject of the fine arts; and, on lAs re turn, had the honour of spending two• with the brother of the king, Prince Henry of at Camper was chosen Member of the Royal Academy of Sciences at Paris,• an honour which was the more highly prized,•as the number of foreigners on whom it was conferred was limited to eight. In the same year, he paid a fourth visit to England, a country for which he had alway shown a strong tiality, and was again gratified with the society of the numerous friends he had left there, and of others whose acquaintance be then for the first time made.
His literary and philosophical occupations, nume rous and important as they were, did not Preclude him from taking an active part in the political con cerns of his country. In 1764, he was returned as deputy in the Assembly of the province of Fries land ; and in 1776, appeared there as deputy for Idaarderadeel. He.persuaded the Assembly to re-• ject a proposal for the restoration of the maritime dikes of that province.. In 1798, on the recommen. datiott of the Stadtholder, he was nominated one of the Council of State of the •United Provinces, and was of course obliged to reside at the Hague. Dining the revolution which soon after occurred in Holland, he remained faithfully attached to the party of the Stadtholder ; without, however, yielding his unqua lified approbation to all their measures. The triumph of his own party was even accompanied with circum stances which gave him much concern, and embit tered the latter period of his He died in 1789, of a violent pleurisy, on the 7th of April s and his remains were deposited in the tomb of his ancestors, in the Church of St Peter at Leyden.
To a mind enriched with vast stores of knowledge, and adorned with a taste at once elegant and refined, Camper united the most benevolent affections, and possessed all the virtues of domestic and sdcial life.
His conduct in the several relations of son, of hus band, and of father, was in all respects exemplary. His manners were remarkably placid, and bespoke that habitual equanimity, which was the characteristic tioality of his temper, and which, amidst strong sensibi lity to the affections of humanity, he constantly studied to preserve. Nature had bestowed upon him a dig nified and graceful form, and a remarkably indented and expressive countenance. His voice, which was sonorous and flexible, was excellently adapted for public spealdng. He had a singular facility in ac quiring languages ; and spoke fluently Latin, Eng lish, French, and German • and had, besides, attain ed a competent knowledge of Greek and of Italian.
Few men have received, during their lives, so many honourable marks of literary distinction as Camper. Besides those which have been already mentioned, he was chosen Member of the Academies of Petersburg, Berlin, Edinburgh, Manchester, Thou louse, Gottingen, Harlem, Rotterdam, and Flushing; and was Foreign Associate of the Royal Society of Medicine at Paris. He obtained the prize of the Academy of Harlem, for his Memoir on the Physical Education of Children. His -Researches on Spea:fic Remedies gained him the prize of the Academy of Sciences of Dijon ; his &nervations on Inoculation that of the Academy of Thoulouse ; and his Memoir on Chronic Diseases of the Chest that of the Aca demy Lyons. The Royal Academy of Surgery
voted him three prizes for his Memoirs on the In fluence of Diferent Circumstances in Regimen on the Treatment of Surgical Diseases. To specify in de tail the several subjects on which he has written, would be to extend this article to too great a length. We shall, therefore, content ourselves with enume rating those works which are of most importance ; and, instead of reciting them in the order of their publication, shall arrange them according to the subjects to which they relate. His principal labours were bestowed on Comparative Anatomy and Phy siology, and his discoveries in this wide field of re search are numerous and important. A posthumous collection of his works on these subjects appeared at Paris in 1803, in 8 vols. 8vo, with a folio atlas of plates, title of CEutwes de Pierre Camper, qus oat pour objet Histoire Naturelle, in Phymo logic, et P Anatonne Comparle to which is an Essay on his Life and Writings, by his son, and two eulogiums, one by Vicq d'Asyr, and the other by Condorcet. They contain his Dissection and Na tural History of the Orang-orstang, and other Species of Apes. lie examines especially the peculiarities in the structure of the organ of voice of those ani mals, which deprive them of the power of, uttering articulate sounds, and which alone would place an immense interval between them and the human spe cies. His anatomical description of the two-horned rhinoceros, of the rein-deer, and of the elephant, are the subjects of separate dissertations ; as also his re searches on the structure of the great bones of birds, and the manner in which atmospherical air is intro duced into them (of which the discovery was made by Camper, prior to the time at which Hunter pub lished his observations on the same fact) ; on the structure of the porpoise and the whale ; on the clas sification of fishes, according to the system of Lin nieus ; on the anatomical structure of the organs of bearing in fishes, and of the blowing-holes of the cdacea ; on the du,gon of Bufon, and the sirena la certina of Linnaeus, both of which he pronounces to belong to the class of fishes ; on the generation of the papa, or American toad ; on the croaking of the male frog ; on the petrifaction found in the moun tain of St Peter, near Maestricht, and the fossil bones of fish and other animals; on the analogies that may be traced between the several parts of the animal kingdom, especially in the structure of the human species, cqmpared with those of quadrupeds, birds, and fishes; on the alteration of form in the human species produced by age ; on the diversity of features which claracterize different nations, and the mode of expressing these differences in delineating the hu man figure ; on the mode in which the passions are indicated by the countenance ; on the beau ply siquc, or the beauty of forms ; and on the analogy between plants and animas: In the practical branches of Medicine, he has written observations on the ino. culation of the small pox, founded on experiment ; on the theory and treatment of chronic dm of the Imp, and a historical inquiry into the principal medmda of cure employed by the ancients and mo derns in these disorders ; on the. nature, employ ment, and Mode of operation of remedies termed silocAoe ; pn the nature, nausea, and treatment of ficoallY, and the different indications of cure derived froPI the WYMptouss ; en. the nature of cancer, and Pru thg signs denoting those of the breast that do not pit of cure ; the berake incident to new-born cliddren, 4rc. • on ulcers in the urethra and prolap SW Pi; on 31;0 fractur•.of the patella; on the callus of treatured hones ; on lithotomy, 'and especially 4 th,e method of performing that operation at two according to the plan of the cele. brated Franco ; on the construction of bandages far herniae ; op •audages in general ; on the abuse of oust:Rents and plasters, in the treatment of u14 cars, and on improved methods of managing them ; on the nexious effects attending the admission of air into the body, and the influence of this principle on the treatment of surgical diseases. In the depart ment of Midwifery, he has written a letter to Dr Vag Geseher on the utility of the section of the symphysis pubis in laborious labours, and ohserva dons on the use of the lever of Roonhuysen in diffi cult parturition. Several memoirs on the subject of infanticide, and the juridical questions connected with that subject, were published by him at Leeu warden. (w.)