684 THE LIFE AND WORKS OF BROWN-SEQUARD. 



municipality of Port Louis. At the end of the year he returned to the 

 United States, where he received the appointment of professor of 

 physiology in the University of Richmond, Virginia, and began his 

 course in 1855. 



He seemed then to have a secure position, which would enable him to 

 live and to devote himself to original researches. This was, however, 

 a delusion. The directors and the pupils of the university required 

 didactic, elementary knowledge only, to prepare the pupils to answer 

 examination questions. As to original researches, neither the one nor 

 the other cared anything about them. Besides, there were already 

 coming up in Virginia certain problems of a more extended political 

 and social character, relating to slavery, an institution thought by the 

 Southern States to be essential. Already there was beginning that 

 fermentation which culminated a few years later in the war of secession. 

 Kow Brown- Sequard was too much attached to the humanitarian ideas 

 of the eighteenth century and of the French revolution to hesitate. His 

 social position in Richmond became unpleasant. It was practicable 

 for him to make a change he had in view, as he had been able to acquire 

 some income in the practice of medicine. Accordingly, instead of 

 pursuing in the United States the career now open before him, he took 

 advantage of the small sum he had accumulated by economy and 

 hastened to Paris, the center of attraction to which he was always 

 drawn. 



It was at this period that I saw him for the first time, at the end of 

 1855, in the sympathetic circle of the Society of Biology. He was 

 then 38 y^ars of age. I have still before me a vision of that original 

 face, delicate and kindly, embrowned by the climate of his native 

 island; those keen and gentle eyes, always in restless motion, animated 

 at once with an affectionate regard for the friends of science and by 

 an unceasing and ever-watchful curiosity, which led him to search 

 out her secrets, and also by some inexplicable feeling of timidity, which 

 doubtless caused his inability to manage his own affairs. 



His personal devotion to science was unbounded, and led him more 

 than once to make experiments that might endanger his health. Thus 

 he repeated in his own person the experiments that Spallanzani had 

 made upon ravens, that of collecting gastric juice by means of a sponge 

 attached to a string, swallowing the former and then withdrawing it 

 from his stomach charged with the precious liquid. The following 

 sfcuy, even more striking, is related of him. 



In 1851 he was making researches upon red and dark blood. He 

 injected into the arm of an executed criminal, thirteen hours after 

 decapitation, 250 grams of his own blood, obtained by opening a vein. 



In 1855 he set up in the rue St. Jacques a physiological laboratory in 

 common with Charles Robin, another investigator who was also loved 

 by the young. Among the beginners of that period who have since 

 made their mark it will suffice to mention our friend Laboulbene, pro- 



