In the history of medicine one can find only a few instances of men who were very clever surgeons and at the same time highly gifted physiologists. A study of the life and writings of Sir Benjamin Brodie reveals clearly that he is a conspicuous instance of this kind. The very limited space at my command does not permit me to furnish more than a few incomplete proofs of the truth of what I have just stated. Such are, for example, the following:—
In 1810 Sir Benjamin Brodie delivered the Croonian lecture before the Royal Society, the subject chosen being “On some Physiological Researches respecting the Influence of the Brain on the Action of the Heart, and on the Generation of Animal Heat.” His experiments, according to the account given by his biographer, “go to show that if respiration can be maintained, even artificially, the heart will continue to contract with strength and frequency, even though the spinal cord be divided from the brain.” Sir Brodie contrived an apparatus to effect this, and at the same time carefully noted the circumstances connected with the secretion of the urine, which in these experiments was found to be suppressed. The conclusions he has drawn from this inquiry, conducted with great precision and detailed with equal perspicuity, are the following:—
1. The influence of the brain is not directly necessary to the action of the heart.
2. When the brain is injured or removed, the action of the heart ceases, only because respiration is under its influence; and if under these circumstances respiration is artificially produced, the circulation will still continue.
3. When the influence of the brain is cut off, the secretion of urine appears to cease, and no heat is generated; notwithstanding the functions of respiration and the circulation of the blood continue to be performed, and the usual changes in the appearance of the blood are produced in the lungs.
4. When the air respired is colder than the natural temperature of the animal, the effect of respiration is not to generate, but to diminish animal heat.
In 1811 Sir Benjamin Brodie reported to the Royal Society the results of various experiments which he made on the different modes in which death is produced by certain vegetable poisons (for example, alcohol; the essential oil of bitter almonds; the juice of the leaves of aconite; the infusion of tobacco; the empyreumatic oil of tobacco; the curare; etc.). During the following year he reported to the same society the results of a similar series of experiments which he made upon the effects produced by certain mineral poisons (for example, arsenic, muriate of barytes, tartar emetic, and corrosive sublimate).
The preceding brief references to the experimental work carried on by Sir Benjamin Brodie must suffice to show how thoroughly he deserved to be ranked as one of the leading English experimental physiologists of his day.
SIR BENJAMIN COLLINS BRODIE, BART., F.R.S.
Sergeant Surgeon to the Queen
(Copied from Thomas J. Pettigrew’s “Medical Portrait Gallery,” London, 1838. The original portrait was painted by H. Room; the engraving was done by J. Brain.)