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FRANCIS GLISSON 



1597-1677 (aet. 80). 



GLISSON was born at Rampisham, in Dorsetshire, just one year 

 after Descartes, studied medicine and graduated at Cambridge, 

 where he was Regius Professor of Physic for about forty 

 years. M. Foster states that there is no evidence of his ever having 

 delivered any courses of lectures (Hist, of Phys., p. 287, 1901). He 

 settled in London, and was Reader in Anatomy in the College of 

 Physicians, in 1639, and became its president in 1667-9. He practised 

 in Colchester during the troublous times of the civil wars. As 

 already stated, he was one of the original group of scientific men 

 who, about 1645-1662, laid the foundation of the Royal Society. 

 In 1654, he published his treatise De Hepate, and in this connection 

 we still have his name preserved in the " capsule of Glisson," although 

 it was known both to Wateus and Pecquet. Glisson, however, 

 was the first accurately to describe the capsule of the vena port- 

 arum, and the description he gave of its blood vessels was a distinct 

 contribution to the subject, but his researches extended only to what 

 can be observed by the unaided eye, and thus it was reserved for 

 Malpighi, with a full knowledge of all the then recent discoveries in 

 connection with glands, to recognise the liver as a conglomerate 

 gland, which secreted bile, as the parotid secreted saliva. 



Glisson was more than an anatomist or physician, he was also a 

 philosopher and physiologist. He was clearly a man of decided views 

 — he was an elder in a church in a small village in Essex — and had 

 the courage of his opinions as regards the payment of his salary. 

 Although there is no evidence that he gave lectures on physic in 

 Cambridge, he attended from time to time " to keep acts," yet "in 

 1650 he petitioned the University for five years' arrears of salary, 

 apparently the years 1643-4 to 1648-9, when, living at Colchester, he 

 was wholly absent" (M. Foster, Lect. on Phys. p. 287, 1901). Sir 

 Michael does not record the result. He remained in London during 

 the plague in 1665, and the method he used to escape infection " was 

 thrusting bits of sponge dipped in vinegar up his nostrils " (John 

 Aikin, Biogr. Mem. of Med., 1780). 



Glisson records an important experiment on muscle physiology. 

 In his De Ventriculo et Intestinis, his last work, published when he 

 was already an old man, he gives an account of all that is known 

 regarding the alimentary canal, and the irritability of its walls. The 



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