MEMOIR OF MAGENDIE. 105 



•wretches reduced to the state of an inert mass, feeling no pain but that of in- 

 spiring distrust, and finding his recompense in the liberality with which his 

 purse was emptied for the succor of such as were saved and restored to their 

 families. 



The duration, the rigor of the pestilence found the forces of M. Magendie at 

 their own level. Calm having been somewhat re-established, the cross of the 

 legion of honor was sent to him. " I think it very well awarded," he remarked. 



Having satisfied his conscience, he returned to his labors, occupied himself 

 anew with inquiries respecting the nervous system, resumed his instruction ; 

 but his lectures on the cholera, and still more his bearing, evinced that this man, 

 who was accused of insensibility, had not passed with impunity through an 

 interval of heart-rending emotions. Impel'ed by a secret preoccupation, he ap- 

 plied himself to an investigation of the agents under the influence of which epi- 

 demic maladies may be generated. 



Being shut up one day in his laboratory, he was giving his whole attention 

 to an experiment, when lifting his eyes they met those of a sedate and portly 

 personage who, in abrupt tones, asked to speak with Magendie. From the first 

 glance at the broad-brimmed hat scrupulously kept on the head, the short 

 breeches, the peculiar cut of the vesture, the experimenter comprehended the 

 quality of his visitor. " I had heard speak of thee," said the Quaker, " and was 

 not misinformed ; I come to say to thee that thou shouldst desist from these 

 experiments. Who has permitted thee to dispose of the life of these animals ?" 

 " Your countryman Harvey," replied M. Magendie, " would not have discovered 

 the circulation of the blood if he could not have sacrificed the deer in the park 

 of Charles I. Here science contends against the maladies inflicted on humanity, 

 as elsewhere war contends against the incursions of barbarism. Perhaps," he 

 added with complaisant deference, " you would condemn the chase." "Cer- 

 tainly," replied the inflexible Quaker ; " I condemn the chase, I condemn war, 

 and experiments upon animals ; man therein assumes rights which do not belong 

 to him : I mean to prove it, and I shall travel until I have made those wrongs 

 disappear from the world." Probably this reformer is still on his travels. 



A sojourn in the country came very opportunely to diversify our savant's 

 course of Hfe. Under the influence of a smoother existence this heretofore un- 

 manageable nature was led to unbend itself. He had married ; he saw that he 

 was understood even in the foibles of his character, and, like a man of sense, 

 took the part of laughing at them. " I agree," he said resignedly, " that I am 

 nothing but a real bull-dog." Happy days were ushered in by this frankness ; 

 friendly neighbors came around him to applaud his experiments on vegetation, 

 on agricultural ameliorations, attempts which, he said, might enrich science and 

 the country, but whose immediate result was to diminish his own fortune. To 

 fire-side happiness, to the charms of a lively society, he joined the pleasure of 

 doing good. For the suffering in his neighborhood, dispensing with a part of 

 his medical principles, he had established in his house a small, but very small 

 pharmacy. Of all remedies that which he oftenest put in practice was to pay 

 the invalid for the consultation which the invalid received. 



No trace of the republican recklessness and rudeness remained, except per- 

 haps in the malign pleasure which from time to time M. Magendie still allowed 

 himself, of demolishing all our governments ; and that with so hearty a denun- 

 ciation that a judicious friend once said to him : " If to-day a government were 

 created to your mind, in six weeks you would find it the most detestable in the 

 world." " Very possibly," he replied. " It is certain, however, that not one 

 of them can boast of having received a solicitation from me." 



It was, in eff'ect, without solicitation that in 1848, on the establishment of the 

 consultative commission of public hygiene, he was nominated its president. 

 The firmness with which he interdicted the admission of all charlatanism into 

 this institution, the clearness and justness of his views, rendered his influence 



