Biology must borrow the experimental method of physico-chemical sciences, but keep its special phenomena and its own laws. Should we therefore have counted the positive and negative cases and said: the law is that anterior roots are sensitive, for instance, 25 times out of a 100? In 1854 a chair of general physiology was created for him in the Sorbonne, and he was elected to the Academy of Sciences. Claude Bernard was a French physiologist who made several discoveries about the body that are still relevant and true today. Atthe beginning of his career, Bernards audiences had been composed mostly of physicians and physiologists, especially foreigners. Claude Bernard, Leons sur les effets des substances toxiques. Bernard's scientific discoveries were made through vivisection, of which he was the primary proponent in Europe at the time. Let us know if you have suggestions to improve this article (requires login). Following his discoveries, in 1855 Bernard was the first scientist to verify the presence of sugar in the cerebrospinal fluid [ 2, 3 ]. Starting from this well established fact, I could then carry analysis of the phenomena further and determine the mechanism of death from curare. In its normal state, this gland supplies an intermittent secretion which we can excite or stop at pleasure. In the sequel of this work, I shall therefore be careful always to describe experimental methods, including the anatomical arrangement, and I shall show that divergencies of opinion among physiologists have been caused, more than once, by anatomical differences which they failed to reckon with, when interpreting the results of experiments. Scientific medicine is certainly not yet well established to-day; but thanks to the experimental method which is permeating it more and more, it is tending to become an exact science. We must have robust faith and not believe. The histological units react either separately or one against another by means of vital properties which are themselves in necessary connection with surrounding physico-chemical conditions; and this relation is so intimate that we may say the intensity of physico-chemical phenomena taking place in an organism may be used to measure the intensity of its vital phenomena. It cannot be smothered or driven away on the pretence that it may do harm; it must only be regulated and given a criterion, which is quite another matter. Real science exists, then, only from the moment when a phenomenon is accurately defined as to its nature and rigorously determined in relation to its material conditions, that is, when its law is known. This is probably due both to the conflicting influence of bacteriology, organic chemistry and other sciences and, not less, to his own clearness of vision. In this connection, we should perhaps make a distinction between mathematical sciences and experimental sciences. The life of an organism is simply the resultant of all its inmost workings; it may appear more or less lively, or more or less enfeebled and languishing, without possible explanation by anything in the outer environment, because it is governed by the conditions of the inner environment. But as only what has been sown in the ground will ever grow in it, so nothing will be developed by the experimental method except the ideas submitted to it. In a word, the greatest scientific truths are rooted in details of experimental investigation which form, as it were, the soil in which these truths develop. Experimenters, then, always doubt even their starting point; of necessity they keep a supple and modest mind and accept contradiction, on the one condition that it be proved. Shall we say that our senses played us false at one period and not the other? Indeed when we wish to ascribe to a physiological quality its value and true significance, we must always refer it to this whole, and draw our final conclusion only in relation to its effects in the whole. Its composition is that of the air, which remains the same, except for the proportions of water vapor and a few electric and other conditions which vary. Observers and experimenters, indeed, are investigators seeking to note facts to the best of their ability, using more or less complicated means for this purpose according to the complexity of the phenomena that they study. III. Without it, we could not make any investigation at all nor learn anything; we could only pile up sterile observations. "In teaching man, experimental science results in lessening his pride more and more by proving to him every day that primary causes, like the objective reality of things, will be hidden from him forever and that he can only know relations." We must simply acknowledge that experimental conditions, which we believed to be known, are not known. Medicine, indeed, is so vast that we can never hope to find a man able to cultivate all parts of it fruitfully at one time. Fanny Martin was appalled by her husbands experiments. The latter, as we have seen, try to infer the source of life exclusively from anatomy; they therefore adopt an anatomical plan. If we meet with incredulity with regard to this, we can perhaps easily prove that, as J. de Maistre says, those who make the most discoveries in science know Bacon least, while those who read and ponder him, like Bacon himself, have poor success. This essentially analytic, experimental method is put in practice every day in physiology. All phenomena, to whatever order they belong, exist implicitly in the changeless laws of nature; and they show themselves only when their necessary conditions are actualized. But that is still by no means all. We must therefore seek the true foundation of animal physics and chemistry in the physico-chemical properties of the inner environment. With the help of these active experimental sciences, man becomes an inventor of phenomena, a real foreman of creation; and under this head we cannot set limits to the power that he may gain over nature through future progress in the experimental sciences. Get a Britannica Premium subscription and gain access to exclusive content. Experimentation is undeniably harder in medicine than in any other science; but for that very reason, it was never so necessary, and indeed so indispensable. We know, in fact, that the histological units of our organs express the phenomena of life; now if the functions of these units show no variations under the influence of variations in the temperature, humidity and pressure of the outer atmosphere, it is because they are immersed in an organic environment whose degrees of temperature, humidity and pressure do not change with variations in the cosmic environment. What I am setting forth is most strikingly proved in the case of Francois Huber. When Pascal made a barometric observation at the bottom of the Tour Saint Jacques, and later took another at the top of the tower, we must admit that he performed an experiment; yet here were simply two comparative observations of air pressure carried out in view of the preconceived idea that this pressure should vary according to height. But science would never progress if we thought ourselves justified in renouncing scientific methods because they were imperfect; in this case, the one thing to do is to perfect the methods. True science acts and explains its action or its power: that is its character, that is its aim. Thus in certain toxic phenomena we see different poisons lead to one cause and to a single determinism for the death of histological units, for example, the coagulation of muscular substance. Now this is very often not the case in medicine. Only in warm-blooded animals do the conditions of the organism and those of the surrounding environment seem to be independent; in these animals indeed the manifestation of vital phenomena no longer suffers the alternations and variations that the cosmic conditions display; and an inner force seems to join combat with these influences and in spite of them to maintain the vital forces in equilibrium. and Obs. In 1839 M. Longet, like myself, was working in the laboratory of the College de France when Magendie discovered the sensitivity of the anterior spinal roots and showed that it is derived from the posterior roots and returns by the periphery, whence the name reverse sensitivity or recurrent sensitivity which he gave it. To sum up, from what has been said we can gain an idea of the enormous complexity of vital phenomena and of the almost insuperable difficulties which their accurate determination opposes to physiologists forced to carry on experimentation in the internal or organic environments. This ratio, established by observation, enables astronomers to predict celestial phenomena; this same ratio, established by observation and experiment, again enables physicists, chemists, physiologists, not only to predict the phenomena of nature, but even to modify them at pleasure and to a certainty, provided they do not swerve from the ratio which experience has pointed out, i.e., the law. He cannot tell how they arise, but the experimental idea seems to him a presentiment of the nature of things. This is what made us say elsewhere that we must never make experiments to confirm our ideas, but simply to control them; which means, in other terms, that one must accept the results of experiments as they come, with all their unexpectedness and irregularity. Bernardpassed the examinations for internship in the Paris municipal hospitals in 1839. He showed that carbon monoxide could substitute for oxygen and combine with hemoglobin, thereby causing oxygen starvation. Paris, 1856. They develop, live, become diseased and die under influences necessarily of like nature, though manifested by infinitely varying mechanisms. J. Godard, ed. Such is the principal thesis of the present work, which ought not to be obscured by the consideration of incidental topics, no matter how intrinsically important they may be. His power over living beings will remain more limited, especially where they form higher, i.e., more complicated organisms. We may add that philosophical ideas stand for aspirations of the human spirit which are also of all time. For example: Although the application of mathematics to every aspect of science is its ultimate goal, biology is still too complex and poorly understood. The habit of vitalistic explanation makes us credulous and pro- motes the introduction of erroneous or absurd data into science. Leons de physiologie opratotire, M. Duval, ed. It is in the darker regions of science that great men are recognized; they are marked by ideas which light up phenomena hitherto obscure and carry science forward. But everywhere the idea must be submitted to a criterion. This appellation is in fact more appropriate; we can perfectly well picture to ourselves a complex organism made up of a quantity of distinct elementary organisms, uniting, joining and grouping together in various ways, to give birth first to the different tissues of the body, then to its various organs; anatomical mechanisms are themselves only assemblages of organs which present endlessly varied combinations in living beings. Among these, let me choose an example to show my idea of how empirical medicine can become scientific. A great surgeon performs operations for stone by a single method; later he makes a statistical summary of deaths and recoveries, and he concludes from these statistics that the mortality law for this operation is two out of five. Thse. Magendie noticed Bernards skillful dissections and took him on as a research assistant. But we cannot too strongly protest against such ideas, which are bad, not only because they stifle every germ of science, but also because they especially encourage laziness, ignorance and charlatanism. Since Galen, at long intervals in the midst of medical systems, eminent vivisectors have always appeared. This does not mean that I condemn the application of mathematics to biological phenomena, because the science will later be established by this alone; only I am convinced that, since a complete equation is impossible for the moment, qualitative must necessarily precede quantitative study of phenomena. But keep its special phenomena and its own laws that philosophical ideas for. Its power: that is its aim opratotire, M. Duval, ed we say that our played. Us false at one period and not the other and chemistry in the case of Francois Huber anything we... Be submitted to a criterion showed that carbon monoxide could substitute for oxygen and combine with,... 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