# Physiological Researches upon Life and Death

PHYSIOLOGICAL RESEARCHES
UPON
LIFE AND DEATH;
BY XAV. BICHAT,
PHYSICIAN OF THE HOTEL-DIEU, PROFESSOR OF ANATOMY, PHYSIOLOGY AND MEDICINE, AND MEMBER OF SEVERAL LEARNED SOCIETIES.
TRANSLATED FROM THE FRENCH
BY TOBIAS WATKINS,
MEMBER OF THE MEDICAL AND CHIRURGICAL FACULTY OF MARYLAND, PHYSICIAN TO THE MARINE HOSPITAL OF BALTIMORE, &c.
FIRST AMERICAN FROM THE SECOND PARIS EDITION.
PRINTED BY SMITH & MAXWELL
PHILADELPHIA.
1809.
DEDICATION,
TO
J. N. HALLÉ,
MEMBER OF THE NATIONAL INSTITUTE OF FRANCE,
AND
PROFESSOR OF THE SCHOOL OF MEDICINE OF PARIS.
XAVIER BICHAT.
ADVERTISEMENT
OF
THE PARIS EDITOR.
It was the intention of the author to have made some important additions to the first part of this new edition. Certain Articles now offered with modifications, would have appeared more complete, and been enriched with several new views: the reader would have found in it a Treatise on Beauty, considered physiologically. In a second volume, these physiological principles would have been applied to Medicine; and the same order which has now been pursued, in considering the functions in their healthy state, would have been adopted to consider them also in a state of disease. The death of the author has deprived the public of these advantages, and compels us again to offer the work in its original state. We conceived it due however, to the memory of citizen Bichat, to make known those intentions, the fulfilment of which he had already commenced.
AUTHOR'S PREFACE.
Life and death, considered in a general manner, appeared to me a subject susceptible of several views, and many useful experiments. It was this which determined me to undertake the work which I now offer to the Public. I flatter myself the reader will find in it some considerations and facts but little known. Those, however, who have read Aristotle, Buffon, Morgagni, Haller, Bordeu, and others who have written upon this subject, will see that those authors have furnished me with some hints; but they will at the same time know how to distinguish the share which belongs to myself; and I dare hope they will see enough to convince them that whatever is not my own holds but a secondary place in these researches: I must except however the division of life.
Books resemble each other, either in the facts which they contain, or in the style in which they are written. The comparison of facts is easily made; it will show perhaps that many of those which I offer, were wanting to the science. As to the method observed in this work, I have endeavoured equally to avoid placing myself among those who accumulate experiments without correspondent reasoning, and among those who produce arguments unfounded in experiment.
​In the present state of physiology, it appeared to me the most judicious plan to connect the experimental method of Haller and Spallanzani, with the grand and philosophic views of Bordeu; if I have failed in attaining this object, it has not been through want of knowing how to appreciate it.
I have extended some divisions already announced in my Treatise on the Membranes, and have again offered them as my own, notwithstanding they have been attributed to Buffon, Bordeu and Grimaud. These authors are so well known, that I considered it unnecessary to quote them with critical exactness. For this reason also I have not attempted to remove the doubts before expressed on some anatomical facts published by me. I shall merely refer those who have entertained these doubts to an inspection of the dead body. For those who gave rise to them, such an inspection is unnecessary: they cannot have forgotten that I have dissected with them, and have demonstrated to them what they now accuse me with having established upon unfounded conjecture.
Finally, I have been cautious, in this work as well as in my former one, not to rely too much upon myself, assured that a thousand circumstances may escape the notice of one and present themselves to another. My experiments have been made often in the presence of a great number, and always with several of the students who attended my lectures. Citizen Hallé has sacrificed much time in repeating the most important; and citizen Duméril has been equally polite. If they should excite the interest of any other lovers of science, my assistance shall be readily afforded.
AN ANALYTICAL TABLE OF CONTENTS.
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