CHARLES A. P. LOUIS
BOOK X
BROUSSAIS AND BROUSSAISM
CHAPTER XXI
THE HARMFUL EFFECTS OF BROUSSAIS’ TEACHING
François Joseph Victor Broussais was born in 1772 at Saint-Malo, a seaport on the north coast of France, in the Department of Ille-et-Vilaine (formerly a part of Brittany). His early medical training was obtained at Paris, where he attended for a short time one of the courses of instruction given by Bichat. On reaching the age of forty-two he entered the service of the Military Hospital at Val-de-Grâce, and not long afterward was chosen Professor of General and Special Pathology and Therapeutics at the University of Paris. The lectures which he delivered on these subjects so fascinated the students and the numerous physicians who attended the course in increasing numbers, that—as Pagel expresses it—a general impression was created, during a period of several successive years, that the whole of French medicine was represented in the person and doctrines of Broussais. The correctness of Pagel’s statement is corroborated by the following extract from “J. L. H. P’s sketches”:—
Monsieur Broussais is unquestionably the most remarkable medical writer of the present age. Splendid works, celebrated lectures, and a great number of proselytes, have in a few years spread far and wide his name and his opinions.... There are, on the other hand, many physicians, who, too old to return now to their studies, and witnessing with no pleasure all these innovations, say that the professor of Val-de-Grâce is only a sectary, in whom passion holds the place of genius, and hardihood of force.... His brutal attacks on men, whether dead or living,—French or foreigners, surrounded with the esteem and admiration of all,—have found approval only among the personal enemies of the contemporaries whom he criticises, and this too in a generation greedy of novelty, and imposed upon by his rough manners and bold speech.
The extract also shows that not a few French physicians refused to accept the “fascinating” doctrines promulgated by Broussais, and reported by him to be “founded on physiological principles.” As Broussaism played such an important part, during the early years of the nineteenth century, in hindering the advance of the real science of medicine, my readers will pardon me, I am sure, if I devote considerable space in the attempt to elucidate the meaning of Broussaism. These revolutionary ideas regarding “physiological medicine” were first published in book form in 1816. Two later editions followed,—one in 1821 and another in 1829. The text is arranged in the form of propositions or “physiological principles,” of which there are 568. Pagel describes them as “not being related in the remotest degree to modern physiology.” In the following paragraphs I have reproduced (in the form of translations) a few of these “Propositions de Médecine” as they are printed in the edition of 1829:—