Claude Bernard

Abstract

IN rapid succession we are compelled to chronicle the recent serious losses by death to French science. To the names of Leverrier, Becquerel, and Regnault, we regret to add that of the equally famous physiologist, Prof. Claude Bernard, who died in Paris on the evening of February 11. He was born at St. Julien, near Villefranche, in the Rhône department, July 12, 1813. After completing a course of study in the Paris faculty of medicine he was appointed hospital-surgeon in 1839. Two years later he became assistant to the well-known physiologist, Prof. Magendie, in the Collége de France, and continued in close connection with him for thirteen years, during the last half of this time lecturing himself as privat-docent. A series of notable discoveries made during this period caused his election, in 1854, to the Academy of Sciences, and his appointment to the newly-founded professorship of general physiology in the Collége de France. This he exchanged in the following year for the chair of experimental physiology, a position which he occupied up to the time of his death.