Biographical Memoir ofM. Corvisart. 13 



Already all Europe rung with his fame, when, in 1802, he 

 was raised to the highest post in his profession, and yet this 

 elevation was not alone the result of his renown. Every one 

 remembers that it was put to the proof, and that, on being 

 called into consultation respecting an affection of the chest, 

 which threatened the chief of the government, he first discovered 

 its cause, and effected its removal. 



His success, however, had not inspired him with an implicit 

 faith in medicine. It is even said that the mistakes which, not- 

 withstanding his great sagacity, sometimes happened to him, 

 gave him the greatest vexation, and made him, m those mo- 

 ments of discouragement, speak ill of his art; nor did he hke 

 those works in which it was pretended to assign precise charac- 

 ters and a regular progress to each disease, and from which 

 young persons might form of medicine an idea simUar to that 

 afforded by the phvsical sciences, properly so called, and still 

 less those in which it is presented in a deceitful simplicity, under 

 the idea of referring diseases and remedies to a small number of 

 forms,— it was not thus that he viewed it. Organized beings 

 have their certain laws, each of them conforms to the type of its 

 species; but the disorders which introduce themselves into their 

 organization, are subject to endless combinations; each day this 

 may assume a different complication ; and it is from the whole 

 symptoms of each moment, taken together, that they are to be 

 iudged of, and combated. Nor did any one pay more attention 

 to these sensible signs. The best physician, according to him, 

 was he who had succeeded in giving to his senses the greatest 

 delicacy. He did not attend solely to the pains felt by the pa- 

 tient, to the variations of his pulse, or of his respiration. A 

 painter could not have better distinguished the shades of colour, 

 nor a musician all the qualities of sounds. The slightest altera- 

 tions of the complexion, of the colour of the eyes and lips, the 

 different intonations of the voice, the smallest differences in the 

 muscles of the face, fixed his attention. Even the variations 

 of the breath and transpiration were carefully measured by him, 

 and, in the judgment which he formed, nothing of all this was a 

 matter of indifference. The innumerable openings of bodies 

 which he had made, had enabled him to remark the correspon. 

 dencc of the slightest external appearances with the internal le- 



