212 Biographical Memoir of M. Philippe Pinel. 



predecessors, between inflammation of the membranes called 

 mucous, which line those of our cavities that communicate with 

 the surface, as the inner coat of the intestines, and that of the 

 trachea and bronchia, and the inflammations of the transparent 

 or serous membranes which line the closed cavities, such as the 

 pericardium, which envelopes the heart, the pleura, which covers 

 the interior of the chest, and the peritoneum, which lines the 

 abdomen, and embraces the intestines in its folds. 



Bichat informs us, that it was this distinction that induced 

 him to engage in the beautiful researches which compose his 

 Treatise on the Membranes, the first work of that celebrated 

 physiologist, and that of which his General Anatomy is in some 

 measure only a development. Amidst these testimonies which 

 we bear to the services rendered by M. Pinel, it would be a 

 great omission to forget that of having excited the genius of 

 such a pupil. 



These were the principal bases of the Nosographie of Pinel. 

 The author did not, as has been supposed, admit occult cases or 

 metaphysical affections, if we may so speak ; he by no means 

 contended that diseases have not a marked situation and an in- 

 ternal cause \ but he kept out of view that cause, and often even 

 the seat of the disease, because he thought the determination of 

 them beyond our reach, and he limited himself to the history of 

 the disorders which diseases produce, and to the kind of order 

 to which these very disorders themselves, in their succession, are 

 still subjected. 



From this manner of regarding diseases, it is easy to under- 

 stand what was his method of treatment *. It was, in general, 

 that named the Expectant Method, consisting in the observa- 

 tion of the progiessof a disease, and in aiding the internal move- 

 ment by which those conservative powers, that are indispensable 

 to the continuance of organization, seem to desii'e to oppose it, 

 but in refraining from any imprudent interposition in this kind 

 of struggle, in which, too often, the physician does not know 

 whether he be helping nature, or whether, in his blindness, he 



• La Medicine Cliniquo, &c. Clinical Sledicine rendered more precise and 

 accurate by the application of Analysis; or a Collection of Observations on 

 Acute Diseases, made at the Salpetriere. 1 vol. 8vo. 1802. The 3d edition 

 was published in 1815. 



