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very lean nor yet lusty. Having laid open the left crural artery about three inches from 

 her belly, I inserted into it a brass pipe whose bore was one-sixth of an inch in diameter ; 

 and to that, by means of another brass pipe which was fitly adapted to it, I fixed a glass 

 tube, of nearly the same diameter, which was nine feet in length : then untying the 

 ligature on the artery, the blood rose in the tube eight feet three inches perpendicular 

 above the level of the left ventricle of the heart : but it did not attain to its full height 

 at once ; it rushed up about half way in an instant, and afterwards gradually at each 

 pulse twelve, eight, six, four, two, and sometimes one inch. 



" When it was at its full height, it would rise and fall at and after each pulse two, 

 three, or four inches ; and sometimes it would fall twelve or fourteen inches, and have 

 there for a time the same vibrations up and down at and after each pulse, as it had when 

 it was at its full height ; to which it would rise again, after forty or fifty pulses." 

 " Hales also observed that the blood rose in the temporal artery of a sheep 6 J feet, carotid 

 of dog 4-6 feet; while in the jugular vein of a horse it rises only from 12 to 21 inches, 

 and in dogs 4 -8 J inches." 



X. BICHAT. 



1771-1802 (set. 31). 



'HTMIE region of the Jura has given to French science many sons, and 

 JL not the least renowned of those who have exercised a profound 

 influence on its progress are Marie Francois Xavier Bichat and 

 L. Pasteur. Bichat was born at Thoirette. He studied at Mont- 

 pellier and Lyons, but owing to the vicissitudes of war he next came 

 to Paris, where he made the acquaintance of, and became assistant 

 to, the famous surgeon Desault, whose works he edited (1791-93). 

 Desault died suddenly in 1795. In 1797, he began to teach anatomy, 

 surgery, physiology, and soon had a large audience. He also became 

 physician to the H6tel-Dieu, where he made in one year over six 

 hundred post-mortem examinations. A plaque in the vestibule of 

 the main entrance of the New Hospital commemorates Bichat's con- 

 nection with this famous hospital, and a statue the only one in the 

 quadrangle of the old Ecole de Medecine in Paris, serves to attest the 

 high honour in which the name and fame of Bichat are held. 



In 1800 he published his treatise on Membranes, and treated of 

 them as : Simple (1) Mucous, (2) Serous, (3) Fibrous. Compound 

 (1) Sero-nbrous, (2) Sere-mucous, (3) Fibro-mucous (the arachnoid 

 and synovial membranes were " accidental ") ; and his still more famous 

 Sur la Vie et sur la Mort. His Anatomic Gene rale appeared in 1801. 

 He died a year afterwards, in 1802. 



From the physiological side he spoke of functions of " animal 

 life " as distinct from those of " organic life," a doctrine of the Mont- 

 pellier School, but undoubtedly his advocacy gave currency to these 

 views, which were fully set forth in his treatise On Life and Death 

 (1799). Perhaps Bichat owes something of his classification of tissues 



u 



