Sir Charles Bell (1774-1842) made the greatest discoveries in physiology since those of Harvey. We owe to him the knowledge that in the nervous trunks are special sensory filaments whose office is to convey impressions from the periphery to the sensorium, and special motor filaments which convey motor impressions from the brain or other nerve centre to the muscles. This great discovery of the functions of the nerves, concerning which there previously existed much confusion amongst physiologists, was published in 1807, and entitles England to claim that in Bell and Harvey she has given to science the two most distinguished physiologists of the world.
Franz J. Gall (1757-1828) was a skilful Viennese anatomist, who, by his researches upon the anatomy of the brain, came to the conclusion that the talents and dispositions of men may be inferred with exactitude from the external appearance of the skull, and thus founded phrenology.
Caspar Spurzheim (1776-1832), an anatomist, was a pupil of Gall, and assisted in the development of phrenology.
Jean M. Charcot (born 1825) is a Paris physician greatly distinguished by his important investigations in diseases of the nervous system, upon which he has written many works.
Pierre Flourens (1794-1867), a distinguished French physiologist, sought to assign their special functions to the brain, corpora quadrigemina, and lesser brain by experiments. In 1847 he directed the attention of the Academy of Sciences to the anæsthetic effect of chloroform upon animals. Chloric ether in the same year was used at St. Bartholomew’s Hospital as an anæsthetic in operations by Dr. Furnell.
Armand Trousseau (1801-1866) was an eloquent and popular clinical lecturer on medicine. He introduced tracheotomy in croup, and largely contributed to our knowledge of laryngeal phthisis, etc.
Claude Bernard (1813-1878), the celebrated experimental physiologist and pathologist, made numerous researches on the digestion of fat by the pancreatic juice, the formation of sugar in the liver, and the artificial production of diabetes by puncturing the fourth ventricle of the brain, etc. He wrote Physiologie et Pathologie du Systeme nerveux, 1858.
Brown-Sequard (born 1817), the experimental physiologist, discovered the vaso-motor nerves. He has investigated the functions of the spinal cord, its normal and pathological states, the brain and sympathetic nerves and ganglions, the inhibitory and other nerves.
Paul Bert (1833-1886) was a physiologist and neuro-pathologist.
G. B. Duchenne (1806-1875) introduced electro-therapeutics by means of the induced current in diseases of the nervous system.