Blainville
HENRI MARIE DUCROTAY DE (blan-vēl'), a French naturalist, born in 1777. After attending a military school, and also studying art, his interest in Cuvier's lectures led him to the study of medicine and natural history. Cuvier chose him for his assistant in the College of France and the Museum of Natural History, and in 1812 secured for him the chair of Anatomy and Zoology in the Faculty of Sciences at Paris. In 1825 he was admitted to the Academy of Sciences; in 1829 he became professor in the Museum of Natural History, lecturing on the mollusca, zoöphytes, and worms; and in 1832 he succeeded Cuvier in the chair of Comparative Anatomy there. His chief works are "Animal Organism, or Principles of Comparative Anatomy," "Manual of Mollusks and Shell Fish," "Manual of Actinology" and "Osteology," a work on the vertebrate skeleton. He died in 1850. an