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  TRANSCRIBER’S NOTE

  Italic text is denoted by _underscores_.

  Footnote anchors are denoted by [number], and the footnotes have been
  placed at the end of each chapter that has footnotes. Several are very
  long.

  Some minor changes are noted at the end of the book.




  PHYSIOLOGICAL RESEARCHES

  ON

  LIFE AND DEATH,

  BY XAVIER BICHAT;

  Translated from the French,

  BY F. GOLD,

  MEMBER OF THE ROYAL COLLEGE OF SURGEONS, LONDON:

  WITH NOTES,

  BY F. MAGENDIE,

  Member of the Institute and of the Royal Academy of Medicine.


  _THE NOTES TRANSLATED_

  BY GEORGE HAYWARD, M. D.


  BOSTON:

  PUBLISHED BY RICHARDSON AND LORD.

  J. H. A. FROST, PRINTER.

  1827.




DISTRICT OF MASSACHUSETTS: _to wit_.

  _District Clerk’s Office._

BE IT REMEMBERED, That on the seventeenth day of December, A. D.
1827, in the fifty-second year of the Independence of the United
States of America, RICHARDSON & LORD, of the said District, have
deposited in this office the title of a book, the right whereof
they claim as proprietors, in the words following, _to wit_:

“Physiological Researches on Life and Death, by Xavier Bichat;
translated from the French, by F. Gold, member of the Royal
College of Surgeons, London, with notes, by F. Magendie, member
of the Institute and of the Royal Academy of Medicine. The notes
translated by George Hayward, M. D.”

In conformity to the Act of the Congress of the United States,
entitled, “An Act for the encouragement of Learning, by securing
the copies of Maps, Charts and Books, to the Authors and
Proprietors of such Copies, during the times therein mentioned:”
and also to an Act entitled, “An Act supplementary to an Act,
entitled, An Act for the encouragement of Learning, by securing the
Copies of Maps, Charts and Books, to the Authors and Proprietors of
such Copies during the times therein mentioned; and extending the
benefits thereof to the Arts of Designing, Engraving and Etching
Historical and other Prints.”

  JOHN W. DAVIS,
  _Clerk of the District of Massachusetts_




TRANSLATOR’S PREFACE.


The Translator of the Work which is here offered to the Public,
feels it quite unnecessary to expatiate upon the merits of its
Author, whose ideas and classifications in Physiology are now
very generally adopted. He has supposed, however, that the
experiments which constitute the _Second_ Part of the Work, are
not so familiar to Professional Men, as many of the conclusions
which have been deduced from them, and therefore has presumed
that a greater publicity of these experiments will by no means be
unserviceable. Dr. Kentish, in his account of Baths, has mentioned
the circumstances which led to this translation.




ADVERTISEMENT BY THE FRENCH EDITOR.


The work of Bichat, which appears to the most advantage, is the
one that we now reprint; his observing mind, his experimental
genius and his lucid manner of exhibiting facts are particularly
observable in it. This work will have for a very long time a great
influence on physiologists and physicians.

The Physiological Researches on Life and Death have had more
than one class of admirers. Exact minds, friends of the progress
of science have praised it for the great number of accurate
observations which it contains, the ingenious management of the
experiments and the correctness of the deductions; but they have
regretted that the author constantly placed life in opposition to
physical laws, as if living beings were not bodies before they were
vegetables or animals. They have seen with regret that he offered
illusory explanations of inexplicable phenomena.

These grounds of legitimate criticism seem to have been the reason
of the enthusiasm of another class of readers, for whom whatever is
vague appears to have a great degree of attraction. The readers,
of whom I have just spoken, feeling but little interest in the new
facts which the Physiological Researches contain, have adopted
without examination its fallacious hypotheses, and attaching
to them an importance which the author never did, because they
believed that they elucidated the mechanism of the most obscure
vital operations, and conducted to a true theory of medicine.
Should we lament this errour? Certainly not, as it has powerfully
contributed to the brilliant success of Bichat’s work, and by means
of some errours, much truth has been promulgated.

As the works of Bichat have now become classics and their
reputation cannot be increased