Whether or not we agree fully with this panegyric of Buckle, we must, I think, place Bichat among the most illustrious men of biological history, as Vesalius, J. Müller, Von Baer, and Balfour.
Marie François Xavier Bichat was born in 1771 at Thoirette, department of the Ain. His father, who was a physician, directed the early education of his son and had the satisfaction of seeing him take kindly to intellectual pursuits. The young student was distinguished in Latin and mathematics, and showed early a fondness for natural history. Having elected to follow the calling of his father, he went to Lyons to study medicine, and came under the instruction of Petit in surgery.
Bichat in Paris.—It was, on the whole, a fortunate circumstance for Bichat that the turbulent events of the French Revolution drove him from Lyons to Paris, where he could have the best training, the greatest stimulus for his growth, and at the same time the widest field for the exercise of his talents. We find him in Paris in 1793, studying under the great surgeon Desault.
He attracted attention to himself in the class of this distinguished teacher and operator by an extemporaneous report on one of the lectures. It was the custom in Desault's classes to have the lectures of the professor reported upon before an assistant by some student especially appointed for the purpose. On one occasion the student who had been appointed to prepare and deliver the review was absent, and Bichat, who was gifted with a powerful memory, volunteered without previous notice to take his place. The lecture was a long and difficult one on the fractures of the clavicle, but Bichat's abstract was so clear, forceful, and complete that its delivery in well-chosen language produced a great sensation both upon the instructor and the students. This notable performance served to bring him directly to the attention of Desault, who invited him to become his assistant and to live in his family. The association of Bichat with the great surgeon was most happy. Desault treated him as a son, and when he suddenly died in 1795, the care of preparing his works for the printer was left to Bichat.
The fidelity with which Bichat executed this trust was characteristic of his noble nature. He laid aside his own personal interests, and his researches in which he was already immersed, and by almost superhuman labor completed the fourth volume of Desault's Journal of Surgery and at the same time collected and published his scattered papers. To these he added observations of his own, making alterations to bring the work up to the highest plane. Thus he paid the debt of gratitude which he felt he owed to Desault for his friendship and assistance.
In 1797 he was appointed professor of anatomy, at the age of twenty-six, and from then to the end of his life, in 1801, he continued in his career of remarkable industry.
The portrait of this very attractive man is shown in Fig. 49. His face shows strong intellectuality. He is described as of "middling stature, with an agreeable face lighted by piercing and expressive eyes." He was much beloved by his students and associates, being "in all relations of life most amiable, a stranger to envy or other hateful passions, modest in demeanor and lively in his manners, which were open and free."
His Phenomenal Industry.—His industry was phenomenal; besides doing the work of a professor, he attended to a considerable practice, and during a single winter he is said to have examined with care six hundred bodies in the pursuance of his researches upon pathological anatomy.
