Note 24 — PART I THE ABBAYE-AUX BOIS

Baron Antoine Portal, consulting physician to Louis XV. and the successive sovereigns until Charles X., was Professor of Anatomy at the Museum, President of the Academy of Medicine, and a friend of Buffon and Franklin. His long career was devoted to remarkable works. By command of the Academy of Sciences he drew up a report in 1774, on the effects of noxious fumes, amongst others, of coal, on man. This small work was reprinted several times, and translated into four languages at the expense of the Academy; although the least important, it is best known of all his works. He died in 1832, aged eighty-seven.