338 PROCEEDINGS OF THE AMERICAN ACADEMY 



early influenced the character of our great associate. It was from her 

 that lie inherited that gravity and at times sternness of manner noticed 

 in after life. Plis father died in consequence of exposures during the 

 horrors of the Revolution. By the kindness of an old priest, young 

 Louis was enabled to pursue at Ai a part of his classical studies. They 

 were finished at one of the seminaries of Paris. On leaving college, 

 he began to study law ; but he soon gave it up, in order to devote him- 

 self to medicine, which he commenced to study in 1807. After spend- 

 ing one year at Eheims in the office of a surgeon, he returned to 

 Paris, and there finished his studies. 



In 1813, when twenty-six years old, he presented his Thesis and 

 received the diploma of Doctor of Medicine, and immediately took 

 rooms at Paris in the fashionable quarters of St. Honore. Soon after- 

 wards, having lost one who had been to him a protector and friend, he 

 determined to leave France, and at first thought of going to Con- 

 stantinople. While doubting what locality he should choose, a friend 

 of the family, the Governor of Podalia, proposed that he should accom- 

 pany him to Russia. 



Louis accepted the offer. He resided several years in that country. 

 The latter part of the time he was settled at Odessa, and met with a 

 brilliant success, being sustained by those in the highest rank of life. 

 He received from the imperial authorities the title of Physician to the 

 Emperor. Thus occupied and entirely successful, he spent four years, 

 and at the end of that period he was at the zenith of his fame as a prac- 

 tising physician. In 1820 (aged thirty-three) a terrible epidemic among 

 children swept over Odessa. Louis was in despair at finding how pow- 

 erless he was to save life ; and, after the epidemic had ceased, he felt it 

 his duty to return to Paris, in order to study all that had been learned 

 about the treatment of cliildren's diseases during his long absence. He 

 supposed that great advances had been made since his departure from the 

 metropolis. Arrived at Paris, he studied six months at the Children's 

 Hospital, but found that he learned nothing new there. The celebrated 

 Broussais, with his fiery eloquence and furious treatment of all oppo- 

 nents, was at that period in full vigor of intellect, and at the height 

 of his world-wide fame. 



Louis, while won somewhat by Broussais' specious and fervid method 

 of enforcing his doctrines in regard to inflammation and its effects, 

 could not be persuaded that a careful scientific study of the flicts of 

 disease would necessarily lead to such conclusions as those announced 

 by that master-spirit of the medical school of that period. Desirous, 

 however, of knowing accurately the doctrines of Broussais, he studied 



