MEMOIR OF MAGENDIE. 93 



through a memory of the common calamity, all were friends. Here he was 

 received as a young man of elegance and worth, and here he dissembled, Avith 

 truly Roman stoicism, the distresses of his situation. "Yet," as he himself 

 would jocosely say in after times, " during a period which seemed no short one, 

 there remained forme, all deductions made, not more than five sous a day to live 

 upon ; and still I had a dog. We shared with one another; and if he was not 

 fat, neither was I." 



This energetic labor, this patient poverty, this aspiration for distinction, fortify 

 and elevate the spirit. Honor to the poor student who sustains them ! If, with 

 his scanty appointments, in his bare apartment, he cheers his vigils and animates 

 his ceaseless labors by a dream of success and glory, he does not deceive him- 

 self; it is at this price that they are purchased. 



M. Magendie became assistant, and then prosector to the Faculty. This scho- 

 lastic apprenticeship opened for him a career; liis dexterity as an anatomist, his 

 coolness, his hardihood, gave presage of a superior surgeon. But the life of 

 compelled fellowship, of equajity reduced to practice, the contact of rivalships 

 never divested of means of offence, proved an intolerable ordeal for this austere 

 and imperious nature. From this ordeal sprang an invincible repugnance to all 

 acknowledged competition, and in order to escape this contingency he renounced 

 surgery. 



To hud in this world a path where one's elbows shall bo free is no easy matter. 

 Our difficult youth brooded with so melancholy a spirit over the obstacles before 

 him that his retreat was invaded by that bitter discouragement which long suf- 

 fering entails, and which the youth, especially the young jihysician, never f;iils 

 to attribute to some malady, assumed to be incurable, but which invariably 

 vanishes before a gleam of good fortune. Magendie wished no longer to live; 

 in fact he asserted that he could not. But one morning a man of the law pre- 

 sents himself at the asylum of the student, avIio, having neither process nor 

 business, asks with natural surprise, what was wanted wilh him? "^S'othing," 

 replied the stranger, "that can be disagreeable to you. You have become the 

 heir of a sum of twenty thousand francs, and I am here to place it at your 

 disposal." 



The invalid found himself at once in a state of convalescence. Accepting this 

 unexpected supply as but a temporary remission of the severity of his life, he 

 immediately made arrangements for the acquisition of showy horses and sportive 

 dogs, all placed in the care of a sprightly and fashionable groom, who was 

 charged, besides, with the duty of keeping a light equipage always in readiness 

 for the use of the improvident but joyous owner of these superfluities. And that 

 not a moment of this transient prosperity might be lost, and at the same time no 

 encroachment be allowed on his conscientious studies, the whole of this appa- 

 ratus of luxury was lodged as near as possible to the hospital. " Thither," said 

 M. Magendie afterwards, "I used to rui^ when I had an instant to spare, so that 

 my whole recreation was literally centred in the stable." The twenty thousand 

 francs were, of course, soon spent, but a little relaxation does much good ; it had 

 renewed the elasticity of his spirit. 



Independence, the golden dream of youth, seemed to withdraw itself for M. 

 Magendie within a circle which left him no choice but to be a physician, if in 

 sj)i(e of In nisei f. Such he was in effeci, but he indemnified himself by main- 

 taining a state of permanent revolt by obstinately refusing to yield his faith and 

 homage to what he called the grand idcl of human credulity. This conflict, in 

 which he displayed infinite address and good sense, discovers to us the sceptic 

 disentangling from prejudices the art which he respects, and thus giving himself 

 the right to make his acquisition a somewhat costly one to the profession— a 

 profession which must still honor the superiority of his views and the austere 

 probity of his character. 



The physicians of antiquity, beginning with Hippocrates, were at once phy- 



