Note 77 — Chapter III · Examination of the Matured Framework of Cell-membrane in Plants. 1800-1840.

Charles François Mirbel (Brisseau-Mirbel) was born at Paris in 1776, and died in 1854. He began life as a painter, but having been introduced by Desfontaines to the study of botany, he became Member of the Institute in 1808, and soon after Professor in the University of Paris. From 1816 to 1825 the cares of administration withdrew him from his botanical studies, but he resumed them and became in 1829 Professeur des cultures in the Museum of Natural History. Mirbel was the founder of microscopic vegetable anatomy in France. All that had been accomplished there before his time was still more unimportant than the work done in Germany. His writings involved him in many controversies, and he made enemies by refusing in his capacity of teacher to allow the importance at that time attributed to systematic botany, but directed his pupils to the study of structure and the phenomena of life in plants. We are told by Milne-Edwards that he suffered much from the fierce attacks which were made upon him; he sank at last into a weak and apathetic state, and was for some time before his death unable to continue his studies or official duties (‘Botanische Zeitung’ for 1855, p. 343).