THE BIRTH OF HISTOLOGY 167 



tation is steadily advancing as our knowledge advances; 

 who, if we compare the shortness of his life with the reach and 

 depth of his views, must be pronounced the most profound 

 thinker and consummate observer by whom the organization 

 of the animal frame has yet been studied. 



"We may except Aristotle, but between Aristotle and 

 Bichat I find no middle man." 



Whether or not we agree fully with this panegyric of 

 Buckle, we must, I think, place Bichat among the most illus- 

 trious men of biological history, as Vesalius, J. Muller, Von 

 Bacr, and Balfour. 



Marie Francois Xavier Bichat was born in 1771 at 

 Thoirette, department of the Ain. His father, who was a 

 physician, directed the early education of his son and had 

 the satisfaction of seeing him take kindly to intellectual pur- 

 suits. The young student was distinguished in Latin and 

 mathematics, and showed early a fondness for natural his- 

 tory. Having elected to follow the calling of his father, he 

 went to Lyons to study medicine, and came under the 

 instruction of Petit in surgery. 



Bichat in Paris. — It was, on the whole, a fortunate cir- 

 cumstance for Bichat that the turbulent events of the French 

 Revolution drove him from Lyons to Paris, where he could 

 have the best training, the greatest stimulus for his growth, 

 and at the same time the widest field for the exercise of his 

 talents. We find him in Paris in 1793, studying under the 

 great surgeon Desault. 



He attracted attention to himself in the class of this dis- 

 tinguished teacher and operator by an extemporaneous report 

 on one of the lectures. It was the custom in Desault's classes 

 to have the lectures of the professor reported upon before an 

 assistant by some student especially appointed for the pur- 

 pose. On one occasion the student who had been appointed 

 to prepare and deliver the review was absent, and Bichat, 



