MAGENDIE, FRANcOls, an eminent French physiologist and physician, was b. at Bordeaux in 1783, and d. in Paris in 1855. Through the influence of his father, who practiced as a physician in Paris, he became a pupil of Boyer, the celebrated anatomist. At the age of 20, after an examination by Concours, he was appointed prosector in the faculty of medicine, and soon afterwards a demonstrator. He was subsequently appointed physician to the Hotel-Dieu. In 1819 he WEIS elected a member of the acad emy of sciences, and in 1831 succeeded Recamier in the chair of anatomy in the college of France.
Magendie's chief physiological works aee: PreCiS Elementaire de Physiologic (1816), which went through several editions, and was enlarged into the Elernens de Physiologic, which was translated into Eng,lish, and was for many years the best work on physiology in this language; Lecons sur les Phenomenes Physiques de laVie (1836-42); Lecons sm. le Saw (1839); hecons sur les Fonetions et les Maladies du SystCme Nerveux (2 vols. 1839); and Reehere.hes Philosophigues et Clinigues sur le Liguide Cephalo-raehidien ou Cerebro-spinal (1842). He was likewise the founder, and for ten years the editor of the Journal de la
Physiologie Experimentale, in which are recorded many of the experiments on living animals which gained for him, too deservedly, the character of an unscrupulous vivi sector.
Ile was the first to prove experimentally that the veins are organs of absorption; he, gave a more accurate account of the process of vomiting than had been previously given:. he pointed out that non-nitrogenous foods are non-nutritious, and that an animal cannot live solely on any one kind of food, however 'nitrogenous it may be; he investigated the , physiological action and therapeutic uses of hydrocyanic acid and strychnine; he per formed an important series of experiments on the cause of death when air is admitted into the larger veins; lie made numerous experiments to determine the functions of vari ous nerves and of different parts of the brain; and lastly, he shares with sir Charles Bell the honor of having discovered the separate functions of the two roots of the spinal nerves.