from 1849/1850 studies of medicine at the Faculty of Medicine in Paris; intern at the Hôspital Cochin; 1857 doctoral dissertation on the circulation of the blood; establishment of the first private laboratory in Paris for the study of experimental physiology in his lodging on Rue Cuvier; 1868 chair of natural history of organized bodies at the Collège de France in succession to Pierre Flourens; studies of animal locomotion by photographic depiction; 1881 construction of a physiological station for the photographic study of animal motion outdoors; 1895 president of the Académie des Sciences.