Biographical Memoir of M. Corvisart. 15 



the chest, the fluids which fill its cavity, the tumours which 

 obstruct the bronchia, or the cellules of the lungs, that he 

 teaches us to distinguish, by the different sounds which the walls 

 of that cavity emit when struck. The form given to this work 

 ought to be remarked as the proof of a noble generosity. In it 

 M. Corvisart sacrificed his fame, a kind of property of which 

 men are less disposed to be lavish than of any other, to a de- 

 licate feeling of justice towards an unknown individual, and one 

 who had been long dead. He had already, from the suggestions 

 of his own mind, made most of the experiments contained in this 

 commentary, and had intended to collect them in a single work, 

 when there fell into his hands a dissertation, published in 1763, 

 by a physician of Vienna, translated in 1770 by a French phy- 

 sician, and yet almost entirely forgotten, in which he found 

 part of what he had observed. / could have sacrificed Avcn- 

 hrugger's name, says he, to my own vanity, but I did not 

 choose to do so : it is his beautiful and legitimate discovery that 

 I wish to revive. 



These words of themselves describe a character. No one, in 

 fact, was more free, more open, more unassuming ; nor could 

 any person be less occupied with himself. Placed so near the 

 man whose word was all-powerful, and at the time when so 

 many prerogatives were brought back by little and little, which 

 were of advantage only to those who were decorated with them, 

 how easily could he have obtained for himself the restoration of 

 the ancient privileges conceded to first physicians, so lucrative, 

 but so useless, it may even be said so hurtful, sometimes to the 

 real progress of medicine. But he was sensible that at the 

 height which the sciences had reached, the exclusive influence 

 of one individual, were he the most skilful in his profession, 

 could only restrain their flight. So far was he from wishing to 

 gain any pre-eminence, that he did not take a higher rank in 

 his hospital than was due to him in point of seniority. On the 

 other hand, contrary to the example of those zealous persons 

 who think they shine so much the more when they are sur- 

 rounded only by obscure individuals, he appointed to the dif- 

 ferent situations in the medical house the physicians who en- 

 joyed most reputation in the city. There were in the number 

 some who had written and spoken against him ; for even this 



