Théophile de Bordeu (1722-1776) was a professor of anatomy and midwifery at Montpellier. By his great work, Recherches sur le Pouls, he so enraged his professional brethren (who, like the Jews, always either maim or kill the prophets sent unto them), that he was attacked in his personal character with disgraceful malignity for several years. He rendered very great services to the progress of medical science. His physiology was far in advance of his age, and many men have found in his researches on the functions of the glands a mine of wealth for the establishment of their own reputation.
M. F. X. de Bichat (1771-1802) was a celebrated French anatomist and physiologist, whose great work, Anatomie Générale, was the foundation of the reform of French medicine at the intellectual awakening after the great revolution. Pathology, the science of disease, would have been impossible without such researches as those of Bichat. He first took a “commanding view,” not merely of the organs of the body, but of the tissues of which they are built up. He resolved the complex into its elements, and investigated the structure of each. He completed the overthrow of the iatro-mathematical school, regarding the properties of the living tissues as vital actions. He classified the functions as organic and animal, and greatly aided in systematising the phenomena of life.
Mesmerism.
Frederick Anton Mesmer (1733-1815) studied medicine at Vienna. He embraced astrology, and believed in the influence of the stars on living beings. He came to think that cures might be effected by stroking with magnets; afterwards he discarded the magnets, and convinced himself that he could influence others by stroking them with his hands alone. In 1778 Paris was greatly excited over the miraculous cures of mesmerism. The medical faculty denounced him as a charlatan, though a Government Commission in its report admitted many of the facts, while tracing them to physiological causes. The Marquis de Puysegur revolutionised the art of mesmerism by producing all the phenomena without the mummeries and violent means resorted to by Mesmer. Dr. John Elliotson in England in 1830 successfully practised the art.
In 1845 Baron von Reichenbach declared he had discovered a new force which he called odyl, and in 1850 his Researches on Magnetism were translated into English by Dr. Gregory, professor of chemistry in the University of Edinburgh.
G. Van Swieten (1700-1772) was a pupil of Boerhaave, and famous in the history of medicine as the founder of the Old Vienna School. He brought about the clinical teaching for which that school has since been so famous. Following the instructions of Paracelsus, he introduced into his practice the use of mercuric perchloride internally in the treatment of syphilis. His commentaries on Boerhaave were considered to be more valuable than the text itself.
De Haen (1704-1776), of the Hague, studied under Boerhaave, and having been recommended by Van Swieten, was invited to Vienna as president of the clinical school in the hospital of that city. Observation, and the simplest treatment in disease, especially in fevers, made up the chief part of his medical system. Purgatives and emetics and powerful medicines he would use only on the most urgent necessity. Hygiene, both for the patient and the state, he considered of the highest importance in medical education. Clinical thermometry received great attention from De Haen, who demonstrated that in what is considered by the patient the cold stage of fevers there is really a notable increase in the temperature.
James Yonge (1646-1721), physician and F.R.S., wrote an important treatise on the use of turpentine as a means of arresting hæmorrhage, entitled Currus Triumphalis de Terebintho. He described the flap operation in amputations, and was acquainted with the principle of the tourniquet for the arrest of bleeding during operations.
John Addenbrooke, M.D., died 1719, leaving by his will four thousand pounds to found a hospital at Cambridge, which now bears his name.
James Drake, M.D. (1667-1707), wrote a work, once deservedly popular, entitled Anthropologia Nova; or, a New System of Anatomy.