Medichw, 221 



tomy and physiology, and digested them into or- 

 der and method. He surveyed every part of the 

 human body, explained the various functions ac- 

 cording to the best lights which the state of sci- 

 ence at that time afforded, corrected the errors of 

 preceding writers, and by a series of indefatigable 

 labours, was enabled to make very important ad- 

 ditions to the existing stock of knowledge. In his 

 great work, entitled Elcmcnta Physiologhc Cor- 

 pons Humani, he examined the opinions which 

 have been recommended, or, at least, advanced 

 by all the most celebrated authors. Nothing of 

 importance, that had been previously published, 

 escaped his notice. The most rapid sketch of the 

 errors in physiology which he detected, of the new 

 facts which he added, of the ingenious and pro- 

 found views w^hich he opened, of the doubts he 

 removed, and of the theories he reformed and im- 

 proved, would exceed the limits assigned to this 

 work/ 



But the greatest of Haller's discoveries, and 

 that which forms an era in the progress of physi- 

 ology, is the irritahllity of the animal fibre. This 

 irritable or contractile power is that property by 

 which muscles recede from stimuli, and become 

 shorter on being touched by them. It is a power 



t Baron Albert de Haller was born at Berne, October l8, 1708, 

 and died in 1777. He was unquestionably one of the greatest men of the 

 age in which he lived ; being equally distinguished for the extent and va- 

 riety of his learning, the vigour and comprehensiveness of his mind, the 

 purity of his taste, and the excellence 'of his moral and religious character. 

 His great attainments, and the uncommon powers which he displayed in 

 almost every kind of knowledge, and particularly in anatomy, physiology, 

 medicine, botany, and various branches of natural history, and also in 

 classical and polite literature, are generally known. He was not less dis- 

 tinguished as a friend to the religion of Christ. He not only professed to 

 believe in revelation, and to cherish a warm attachment to the gospel ; but 

 amidst his multiplied avocations, he ppent much time in studying the scrip- 

 tures, and the evidences of their divine origin; and entered the lists as their 

 avowed advocate and defender. His excellent Letters to bis D.uigbter will 

 long remain a monument at once of his regard to religion, and of liis pater- 

 nal fidelity. Sec Henkv's Memoirs of Libert di Haller^ M. D. &c. &.c. 



