Academie royale de chirurgie, Paris.
Memoires
v. 1-5; 1743-1774.Paris, Chez Charles Osmont, 1743-74.
"French, Academie des Sciences, a scientific society established in 1666 by Jean-Baptiste Colbert to formalize the periodic private meetings in Paris that began about 1662 among a group that included Rene Descartes, Blaise Pascal, Pierre Gassendi, and Marin Mersenne. Under Colbert's sponsorship, the society first met in the royal library and in 1666 was called the Royal Academy of Sciences (Academie Royal des Sciences); but in 1699, reorganized under royal patronage, the society transferred to the Louvre under its present name. As early as 1721, the academy established prizes, the number of which has steadily risen. In 1793, after the French Revolution, the Convention suppressed the Academy of Sciences along with all other royal academies. Its functions were then assumed in 1705 by a branch of the newly formed National Institute. In 1816 the former name was restored, but the academy remained part of the Institute of France.
Its two large divisions-(1) mathematics and physics and (2) chemistry and natural history- are composed of sections devoted to geometry, mechanics, astronomy, geography and navigation, physics, chemistry, geology, botany, zoology, rural economy, and medicine and surgery. Among the outstanding foreign scientists associated with the Academy of Sciences were Benjamin Franklin and Albert Einstein. Membership ordinarily includes about 130 ordinary members, 160 correspondents, and 80 foreign associates" (Encyclopedia Britannica).
