A SCIENTIFIC CENTENARIAN.

Hawke's Bay Herald, Volume XXII, Issue 7608, 3 December 1886, Page 4

A SCIENTIFIC CENTENARIAN.

M. Chevreul, whose hundredth birthday lias ; been celebrated in Paris by the .' students of the schools, the learned '. • societies, and in a great degree by Paris, - ; : lias been regularly at work since he was -.. seventeen. He then entered the labor- ■; atory at Vanquelin, at the College of , .Trance. Napoleon was then First Consul. ,-'. M. Ghovreul was simultaneously Directv. ing "Assistant of Vanqnelin,- Professor of •V. Chemistry at the Charlemagne Lyceum, „ Assistant Professor ■at the Museum of '■■ • Natural' History, and Examiner in Chem- ' . istry at the Ecole Poly technique. He was /■■'■. then nanied Director of the Dyes Depart- ■ '\\f i . meut; anil Special Professor of Chemistry ;' ,at the. Gobelins, a post he has' filled for -•■• .'.the last seventy-three years, and with . which' for seventy years he has combined . " the duties of director of the Natural '.'• '• History • Department at the Jardiu des !' Plantes. He was never prevented a day ; by illness or infirmity Iroiu getting through his work until within the present . ■ year; when he had an attack of bronchitis 'and low fever. He sleeps, well when he , -.-/gges-to.becl, but he is not a great sleeper. „ .' His lifo-iong stimulants have been coffee ;',-.. and, cold water baths. Ho attributes his good health to the n.ction of coffee in pre- . Tenting waste of the system, and to his ', moderation in eating. M. Chevreul has always had a repugnance to -fish, and to •,; '. -many vegetables, but likes onions and ,'. . frn.it. He is a great milk drinker, but ,'•,'•.. milk uninixed'with some other fluid does riot agree with him. Most of his ances- .'' tors were doctors. His father; a very eminent physician of Angers, died at the age of ei«hty-dnc, and his mother at the age of ninety-three. They were spared - almost to the end of their lives the infirmities of old age. M. Chevreul was fprtnnate in .being freed at an early age from pecuniary cares.