His next publication was the Recherches Physio logiques sur la Vie at sur la Mort, in 1800, which consists of two distinct dissertations. In the first, he explains at still greater length than he had pre viously done, his classification of functions, and is at pains to trace the distinction between the animal and organic functions in alrits bearings. In the se cond, he investigates the connection between life and the actions of the three central organs, the .heart, and brain, on which its continuance so essen tially depends. But the work on which he bestow ed the most Attention, and which contained the fruits of his most profound and original researches, is the Anatomic Generale, which was published in four volumes octavo in 1801. It is founded on his classification of the parts of the body, according to their intimate structure • in order to establish which, he decomposes the animal machine, not merely into the larger pieces of which it is formed, but into the organic elements that constitute them. Of these elementary parts or textures, as he terms them, into which every organ may be ultimately analyzed, he enumerates twenty.'one different species. He con ceives each of these textures toa peculiar modification of vitality, from those properties that distinguish it from dead matter, and that give rise to all the phenomena of the animal economy, both in a healthy and diseased state.
Before Bichat had attained the of eight-and twenty, he was appointed physician to the Hotel Dieu, a situation which openedau immense field to his ardent spirit of inquiry. In the investigation of diseases, he pursued the same method of diligent ob. • nervation and scrupulous experiment, which Lad cha racterised his researches in physiology. Ile learned their history, not from books, but by studying them at the bedside of his patients, and by accurate din. section of their bodies after death. Ile engaged in . a long series of examinations, with a view to lacer• tain the exact changes induced in the various organs by diseases, which he conceived, in every instance, primarily to affect some one of their constituent tex tures, while the rest did not suffer any change, un less by the supervention of some other disease. In the prosecution of these inquiries, he had, in less than six months, opened above six hundred bodies. As intimately connected with the practical exercise of the healing art, he was anxious also to determine, with more precision than had hitherto been attempt ed, the effects of remedies on the body. It must be confessed, that our knowledge of the operation of remedies is, for the most part, extremely vague and conjectural ; and it appeared to him an object of great importance to rescue this branch of science from the uncertainty in which a multitude of points relating to it were still involved, by applying to it the same methods of inductive reasoning as have, in other sciences, been attended with so much success. The basis of the inquiry was to be laid by collecting a sufficient number of facts to admit of their being compared and generalized, A large hospital could alone furnish the means of conducting such an in vestigation ; and Bichat eagerly availed himself of the opportunities which his appointment at the Hotel Dieu now afforded him, of. instituting on these sub
jects a series of direct experiments on a very exten sive scale. He began by giving singly different me dicinal substances, and then watching attentively the phenomena that ensued. He then united them in various ways, first joining two together, then three, and so proceeding to more complicated combina tions; and observed the particular changes in their mode of operating, which resulted from their being thus combined. So wide a range of experiments, it is evident, could not have been conducted without assistance ; and he selected forty of his young pupils to aid him in collecting the requisite observations. He had already, in this way, procured a vast store of valuable materials for his course of Lectures on the Materia Medica, the completion of which was un fortunately prevented by his untimely death ; but a great part of the facts were subsequently published in the inaugural dissertations of his pupils. Latterly, he had also occupied himself with framing a new classification of diseases.
During these arduous vocations, he never lost sight of his anatomical pursuits, and had commenced a new work on the subject, in which the organs were arranged according to his peculiar classification of their functions, under the title of Ancrtomie Descrip tive. He lived only to publish the two first volumes of this work. It was, however, continued on the same plan, and completed in three volumes more, by Messrs Buisson and Roux, who had been his most active assistants, and who appear to have been per fectly master of his ideas on the subject. His death was brought on by a fall from a staircase at the Ho tel Dieu ; and although the accident did not at first appear serious, it excited so great a degree of 'fever, that his frame, already exhausted by excessive labour, and enfeebled by constantly respiring the tainted air of the dissecting-room, in which he had latterly passed the greater part of his time, sunk under the attack. He died July 22, 1802, universally regretted by'his pupils, and attended to the last by the widow of his benefactor, from whom he had never been separated. Every tribute of respect was paid to his memory ; his funeral was attended by above six hundred of his pupils, and by a number of the Physicians in Paris. His bust, together with that of Dessanit, was placed at the Hotel Dieu by order of the First Consul, in joint commemoration of the man under whose fos tering protection so bright a genius was first brought before the public, and of the pupil who nobly emu lated the fame of so great a master. We cannot, indeed, refrain from admiration, when we contem. plate all that Bichat has done in his profession in so short a period of time, nor sufficiently lament that a career so auspiciously begun, should, at the age of thirty, have been so suddenly and prematurely ter minated. (w.)