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BERNARD, CLAUDE (1813-1878)

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Originally appearing in Volume V03, Page 798 of the 1911 Encyclopedia Britannica.
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BERNARD, See also:CLAUDE (1813-1878) , See also:French physiologist, was See also:born on the 12th of See also:July 1813 in the See also:village of See also:Saint-See also:Julien near Villefranche. He received his See also:early See also:education in the Jesuit school of that See also:town, and then proceeded to the See also:college at See also:Lyons, which, however, he soon See also:left to become assistant in a druggist's See also:shop. His leisure See also:hours were devoted to the See also:composition of a See also:vaudeville See also:comedy, La See also:Rose du See also:Rhone, and the success it achieved moved him to See also:attempt a See also:prose See also:drama in five acts, See also:Arthur de Bretagne. At the See also:age of twenty-one he went to See also:Paris, armed with this See also:play and an introduction to Saint-Marc See also:Girardin, but the critic dissuaded him from adopting literature as a profession, and urged him rather to take up the study of See also:medicine. This See also:advice he followed, and in due course became interne at the Had Dieu. In this way he was brought into contact with the See also:great physiologist, F. Magendie, who was physician to the See also:hospital, and whose See also:official preparateur at the College de See also:France he became in 1841. Six years afterwards he was appointed his See also:deputy-See also:professor at the college, and in 1855 he succeeded him as full professor. Some See also:time previously he had been chosen the first occupant of the newly-instituted See also:chair of See also:physiology at the See also:Sorbonne. There no laboratory was provided for his use, but See also:Louis See also:Napoleon, after an interview with him in 1864, supplied the deficiency, at the same time See also:building a laboratory at the natural See also:history museum in the Jardin See also:des Plantes, and establishing a professorship, which Bernard left the Sorbonne to accept in 1868—the See also:year in which he was admitted a member of the See also:Institute. He died in Paris on the loth of See also:February 1878 and was accorded a public funeral—an See also:honour which had never before been bestowed by France on a See also:man of See also:science. Claude Bernard's first important See also:work was on the functions of the See also:pancreas gland, the juice of which he proved to be of great significance in the See also:process of digestion; this achievement won him the See also:prize for experimental physiology from the See also:Academy of Sciences.

A second investigation—perhaps his most famous—was on the glycogenic See also:

function of the See also:liver; in the course of this he was led to the conclusion, which throws See also:light on the See also:causation of See also:diabetes, that the liver, in addition to secreting bile, is the seat of an " See also:internal secretion, " by which it prepares See also:sugar at the expense of the elements of the See also:blood passing through it. A third See also:research resulted in the See also:discovery of the vaso-motor See also:system. While engaged, about 1851, in examining the effects produced in the temperature of various parts of the See also:body by See also:section of the See also:nerve or nerves belonging to them, he noticed that See also:division of the cervical sympathetic gave rise to more active circulation and more forcible pulsation of the See also:arteries in certain parts of the See also:head, and a few months afterwards he observed that See also:electrical excitation of the upper portion of the divided nerve had the contrary effect. In this way he established the existence of vaso-motor nerves—both vaso-dilatator and vaso-constrictor. The study of the physiological See also:action of poisons was also a favourite one with him, his See also:attention being devoted in particular to curare and See also:carbon monoxide See also:gas. The earliest announcements of his results, the most striking of which were obtained in the ten years from about 185o to 186o, were generally made in the recognized scientific publications; but the full exposition of his views, and even the statement of some of the See also:original facts, can only be found in his published lectures. The various See also:series of these Legons fill seventeen See also:octavo volumes. He also published Introduction a la medecine experimentale (1865), and Physiologic generale (1872). An See also:English See also:Life of Bernard, by See also:Sir See also:Michael See also:Foster, was published in See also:London in 1899.

End of Article: BERNARD, CLAUDE (1813-1878)

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