PETIT-RADEL: “Very well, let us speak now of the treatment which you recommend. Was it a wise thing to prescribe bleeding and purgatives in the treatment of the gangrenous pustule which you describe in your thesis?” etc.
A candidate for the degree of “Doctor of Medicine” defending his thesis before the examining committee of the Paris Faculty of Medicine.
(From “La Vie Universitaire,” Paris, 1918.)
The remainder of the stenographic report is fully as interesting as the first part, but I do not feel warranted in omitting equally important text in order to find room for the report in its entirety. I will simply state that, before the cross-examination was completed, Bayle had boldly expressed the opinion that “there is nothing more harmful to the advance of practical medicine than the cultivation of the spirit of system.”
Not long after Bayle received his degree of M.D. he succeeded in obtaining, as the result of a competitive examination, one of the two positions of House Physician (“elève interne”) which existed at La Charité Hospital; and here, having at his disposal an extraordinary amount of valuable material both clinical and pathological, and being aided by the experienced guidance of Corvisart and Dumangin, he enjoyed for about two years the most extensive opportunity for self-culture which it is possible for a young physician—Bayle was only twenty-eight in 1802—to have placed at his disposal. Being very industrious and also extremely ambitious to excel he accumulated a great stock of knowledge concerning the different forms of disease to which human beings are subject. Not only did he store this knowledge up in the chambers of his mind, but he also kept written records of everything that seemed to possess value, for use at a later period of his life. This fact should be remembered, for those who have had occasion to consult the numerous treatises which Bayle has published, cannot have failed to wonder that he should have been able to furnish so many and so complete histories of cases that came under his personal observation. But alas! he failed to realize that this sort of work was sapping his strength, and he also seemed to ignore the fact that he was carrying within himself the seeds of a pulmonary disease which was sure sooner or later to put an end to his labors. Already as early as in August, 1804, he was seized with such a violent nostalgia, such an irresistible longing for his beloved mountains, that he was obliged to drop all work at La Charité and return to his home in the south of France. In addition to the nostalgia there were loss of flesh, insomnia and a sense of oppression in the chest. This change of scene, air and occupation proved rapidly beneficial, for, at the end of fifteen days, he felt much stronger and was able to sleep much more soundly than for many previous weeks. His morale, too, was markedly improved; his hunger for mountain scenery and air was now satisfied. Then, for several years after his return to Paris, he remained in comparatively good health, and was able to attend to an enormous amount of hospital and private practice, in addition to literary work. But in 1813 the threatening chest symptoms again compelled him to visit his beloved Alps and to spend several months with his wife and children in their mountain home. This time, however, the improvement in his health was much less pronounced than it was in 1804, and very soon he found that he would have to abandon all active work. His death took place on May 11, 1816, at the early age of forty-two.
According to the statement of Bayle’s biographer it was the unanimous opinion of all the physicians who had come in frequent contact with him during his professional career, especially in the course of his official work at La Charité, that no physician of equally varied and great attainments had previously been seen in Paris. Professors Chomel and Cayol, and the famous Laënnec maintained that this was not too great praise to bestow upon Bayle.
Of his published writings I shall mention here only a few of those which attained some celebrity, viz.: “Remarques sur les Tubercules,” in the Journal de Médecine, Chirurgie, et Pharmacie, tome 6, p. 1; tome 9, p. 427; and tome 10, p. 32.—“Traité des Maladies Cancéreuses,” 2 vols., Paris, 1833. (One of the earliest and certainly one of the most elaborate treatises on this subject that is to be found in the entire range of medical literature.)—“Mémoire sur l’oedème de la Glotte,” in the Dictionnaire des Sciences Médicales.
Jean-Nicolas Corvisart, who was born February 15, 1775, at Drécourt, a village in the Department of Ardennes, N. E. France, was destined by his father to follow in his footsteps, in the career of an attorney; but the son disliked the work more and more as time went on. Finally, he found an opportunity of attending one of the lectures of Antoine Petit, who was one of the most eloquent lecturers on anatomy in France during the eighteenth century. He was completely fascinated by what he heard, and at once determined that this was the only profession that he cared to adopt. Accordingly, during the next few months he made a practice of rising very early in the morning and finishing the clerical work which had been assigned to him in his father’s office; thus gaining time to attend the lectures of Petit, Louis, Desault and Vicq-d’Azyr. When the father discovered what his son had been doing he made up his mind that it would be useless to make any further attempts to keep him occupied with work calculated to fit him for the career of an attorney. Accordingly he allowed him to follow the regular course of studies prescribed for those who intended to become physicians. At that early date (about 1770), however, the regular medical course of training carried out by the Faculty of Medicine was most unsatisfactory. For example, the so-called regular course of lectures was not well adapted to form an adequate basis of education for the student of medicine, and, in addition, there was nothing that could be called clinical teaching. In short, the student was obliged to pick up the knowledge which he needed, in large measure by the exercise of his own wits. But Corvisart was both eager to learn and very persevering, and he possessed such a genius for picking out as his guides the very men who were best fitted for imparting useful knowledge, that he managed to make satisfactory advances despite all these obstacles. The instructors in whom he placed the greatest confidence were Desbois de Rochefort, Head Physician of La Charité Hospital, and Desault, Chief Surgeon of Hôtel-Dieu. These two men, says Cuvier, were the most distinguished medical men of their day in the art of curing disease. Desbois de Rochefort, for example, was the first of the Parisian physicians to give regular clinical instruction in the hospital with which he was connected, and Corvisart followed this instruction regularly throughout a period of several years. He was also present at most of the post-mortem examinations which took place during de Rochefort’s service; in fact, he took the very deepest interest in this part of the work. A prick of one of his fingers while he was dissecting caused an infection which nearly cost him his life. It was on this occasion that Desault, by his skill and by his untiring efforts to control the manifestations of the disease, rendered him splendid service.
