590 CHARLES EDOUARD BROWN-SEQUARD. 



colonial store, he is said to have tried his hand with local success at 

 polite letters, and soon afterwards to have made his way with his 

 mother to Paris, as an aspirant for literary fame, following in this 

 respect also in the footsteps of his great predecessor in the Chair of 

 Physiology, Claude Bernard. 



But he was quickly disillusioned, and, gathering fresh courage, be- 

 gan to prepare himself for the practice of medicine. The next few 

 years covered a period of extreme poverty, in spite of which he dared 

 to devote himself to physiology, though there seemed to be no pros- 

 pect of support or advancement in its pursuit, and then began that 

 long course of tenacious, unflagging labor in scientific fields which was 

 checked only by his death. 



Even the wandering life he led — for he crossed the ocean innumer- 

 able times, and planned at ditFereut periods to make a home for him- 

 self in various cities of Europe and America — did not for a moment 

 arrest his labors or his productiveness, or cause him even to change 

 materially his hours or methods of woik. He was in the habit, 

 from the period of his student years throughout the rest of his life, of 

 going to bed at eight o'clock in the evening and rising at two in the 

 morning, in order to have time for uninterrupted work, and even when 

 journeying by land or sea he continued to study and to write. His 

 whole mental attitude was characterized by an eagerness and intensity 

 which made a moment's conversation with him seem like a memorable 

 ■event. It may be questioned whether his judgment might not have 

 been calmer, and his sense of proportion more just, if the fire of his 

 energy had burned less fiercely ; but it is doubtless true that the bril- 

 liancy of his scientific imagination, which, next to his tireless industry, 

 was his most characteristic trait, was ke^t at a glowing heat by this 

 flame. 



His first scientific communication of consequence was his graduation 

 thesis, on the " Sensory Tracts in the Spinal Cord," presented m 1846, 

 and the investigations which he made with regard to this matter, both 

 at this time and subsequently, were among the most important of his 

 scientific life. In 1848 he took part in founding the Societe de Bi- 

 ologic, and up to the time of his death he remained one of its most 

 active members. In 18.52 he embarked in a sailing vessel for New 

 York, and, having utilized the voyage in studying English, he at once 

 began to teach experimental physiology in the medical schools of New 

 York, Philadelpliia, and Boston, at the same time writing papers in 

 the medical journals and eking out his small income by teaching 

 French and by practising obstetrics. In 1854 he returned to Mauri- 



