570 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY 



especially popular. Cuvier, a morphologist and an ardent vitalist, was 

 supreme and depreciated any attempt to explain or solve physiological 

 problems by physico-chemical means. Bichat, though long dead, wa3 

 very powerful and his explanations which were finally to overthrow the 

 vitalistic conception had been misunderstood and misapplied to over- 

 emphasize it. Many scientists of the time asserted that living organisms 

 could not be subject to exact experimentation. 



Magendie was the foremost physiologist in France and believed in 

 a modified vitalism. While he paid his respects to vitalism by admit- 

 ting that some of the phenomena of life were beyond the scope of experi- 

 mental investigation, he realized that physico-chemical explanations 

 could solve many problems of physiology. Disgusted with the empty 

 discussions of the vitalists, he went to the other extreme and threw his 

 energies entirely into experimental study without thought or plan, and 

 though his accomplishments were many, they fell far short, consider- 

 ing the time spent and energy consumed. 



Bernard saw the fallacies of each line of endeavor and, at the outset 

 strove to use all his powers of theoretical and practical reasoning, to- 

 gether with careful manipulation and observation. Besides his work at 

 the college, he gave a course of private lectures and spent the remainder 

 of his time at research, usually in some temporarily improvised private 

 laboratory or in the chemical laboratory of some one of his friends. 

 There was no room for his private research at the College de France. 



In May, 1843, he published his first communication: "Kecherches 

 anatomiques et physiologiques sur la corde du tympan, pour servir a 

 l'histoire de l'hemiplegie faciale," followed in the same year by hi3 

 doctor's thesis — " Du sue gastrique et du son role dans la nutrition." 

 The work on the chorda tympani nerve, suggested by Magendie's work 

 on nerves, started a long series of similar studies. This was typical of 

 his analytical and logical reasoning. He proceeded, step by step, in his 

 experiments to their logical conclusion or until an observation sug- 

 gested a separate line of inquiry which seemed to be more fruitful. His 

 thesis on the gastric juice was also the first of a series which led to 

 his great discover}'' of glycogen and the glycogenic function of the liver. 

 The main result of this thesis was that cane sugar, injected into the 

 blood, was excreted unchanged; but sugar which had previously been 

 acted upon by gastric juice was not excreted when injected, but was re- 

 tained and used by the tissues. These two pieces of work illustrate 

 Bernard's line of thought. He was always interested in the action of 

 the nervous system on the chemical changes involved in nutrition and 

 worked from both the physiological and chemical aspect of the problem 

 whenever possible. 



In studying the difference in the digestion and nutrition between 

 carnivora and herbivora, he noticed that fat fed to rabbits was digested 



