[Illustration: SIR HUMPHRY DAVY.] Antoine Jussieu was the eldest of the three sons of Laurent Jussieu, a master in pharmacy at Lyons. Antoine was born in 1686, and began to collect plants from his childhood. His two brothers, Bernard and Joseph, followed in his steps, and they, and Bernard’s son, Antoine Laurent, constitute the famous Jussieu dynasty, from whom we have received the natural system of botanical classification. The story is a long and interesting one, but it is outside the scope of these notes. It must be remarked, however, that to Antoine Jussieu is due the credit of the introduction of the coffee plant into the western hemisphere. The island of Martinique was where the first coffee shrub was planted. Fourcroy, another chemist of the Revolutionary period, comes next and is followed by Nicolas Houel (1520-1584), who was the founder of the School of Pharmacy of Paris. He was an apothecary, and out of the ample fortune which he had made from his profession, endowed a “House of Christian Charity.” He stipulated that it was to be a school for young orphans born of legal marriages, there to be instructed to serve and honour God, to acquire good literary instruction, and to learn the art of the apothecary. He also provided that the establishment should furnish medicines to the sick poor, who did not wish to go to the hospital, gratuitously. The institution consisted of a chapel, a school, a complete pharmacy, a garden of simples, and a hospital. The charity was duly authorised by Henri III and Queen Loise of Lorraine, but this did not prevent Henri IV taking possession of it in 1596, and using it as a home for his wounded soldiers. That was the origin of the Hotel des Invalides. Louis XIII transferred the Invalides to the Château of Bicêtre, and gave the school to the Sisters of St. Lazare. In 1622, however, the Parliament of Paris took the matter in hand and restored the property to the corporation of Apothecaries on condition that they would carry out the bequest of Houel. In 1777 Louis XVI made it the College of Pharmacy, and after the Convention the Directory declared it to be the Free School of Pharmacy. When pharmacy was reorganised in France during Napoleon’s consulate, the institution became the Paris School of Pharmacy. Jan Swammerdam, a famous Dutch anatomist (1637-1680), comes next, and after him, Claude Bernard, the physiologist (1813-1878), who began his career in a poor little pharmacy at Lyons. Jean Baptiste Dumas, born 1800, and living when the medallion was placed, also commenced his career in a small pharmacy at Alais (Gard), his native town. Dumas was one of the greatest chemists of the century. The doctrine of substitution of radicles in chemical compounds was suggested by him. He died April 11, 1884, at Cannes. XII ROYAL AND NOBLE PHARMACISTS.