OLISSON, FRANCIS, was born in 1597 at Rampisham in Dorset shire; was admitted at Caine College, Cambridge, of which he became Fellow ; and after having graduated in medicine, and been elected a Fellow of the College of Physicians, was appointed professor of physic in the University of Cambridge, which office he held for about forty years. lie was also president of the College of Physicians. Hie writings show marks of considerable power and originality of mind, and contain some valuable information both iu anatomy and physiology; but from his ideas having been obscured by the language of tho Aristotelian philosophy, they have not met with that attention which they deserve. In 165i he published an acoouut of the anatomy of the liver, iu which he described that peolongation of the cellular tissue, since called the capsule of Glisson,' which enters the aubstauce of the liver together with the versa porta and hepatic artery, and accompanies their subdivisions to the ultimate lobules of which the organ is com posed. He anticipated Nadler in pointing out that property of muscular fibre to which that physiologist gave the name of irritability, for he argues "motive fibrorum facultes nisi irritabilis foret vel perpetuo quicacerot vel perpetuo idem ageret." He distinguished accurately between perception and sensation, and gave as an instance of the former the action of the heart under the stimulus of the blood, or when removed from the body (that is to say, when stimulated by pricking, pinching, galvanism, Sec.), and of the voluntary muscles when excited after death. He maintained that it was only through the medium of this natural irritability, and not directly, that motions were produced uudcr the influence of the will; that the sensation of any external object is produced by an impression upon the natural percep tion of the organ, and that this impression is conveyed by the nerves to the brain. Thus light produces an impression on the retina, which
is conveyed by the optic nerve to the brain, and causes that sensation which we call light. That this view is correct is proved from the fact, that any stimulus applied to the retina produces the same sensation, In each instance we perceive the reaction of the retina under the external irritation.
Gilman noticed the fact, that when any part of the body is stitnn lated or thrown into action, those parts whicu derive their nerves from parts of the brain and spinal cord near to those from which the stimulated part derives its nerves, are frequently thrown into action also; and he correctly explained this phenomenou by reference to the contiguous origins of their nerves. This view approaches nearly to that now known by the name of the reflex function of the spinal cord.
Glisson described, as it would seem from his own work for the first time, the disease called the Rickets, which, as ho states, made its appearance about thirty years before tho date of his work (1850), in the counties of Dorset and Somerset, and by degrees spread to Loudon, Cambridge, and Oxford, and the southern and western parts of Eng land, but bad scarcely then reached the northern parts of the island. He named the disease Rachitis (Paxfris), in imitation of the popular name it had obtained before it was described by any medical writer.
His principal works are Treatise on the Rickets,' by F. G., 1650; 'The Anatomy of the Liver, with some Preliminary Remarks' ou Anatomy, and some Observations ou the Lymphatic Ducts,' London, 16e4; Tmctatus de Ventriculo et lutestiuis, cue prwmittitur aliue do partibus continentibus in genera et iu specie de its Abdominis,'London, 1677. They are all written in Latin.