Recherches physiologiques sur la vie et la mort.

Paris: Charpentier, 1852. Hardcover. See Description. Fifth Edition. 12mo. pp. [4], XXXII, 382. With a fine frontispiece engraving portraying a marble statue of the author. Bound in quarter red morocco with gilt spine and marbled boards. Mild rubbing; generally a fine copy. Pages are clean. Includes the notes of Dr. Cerise (first printed in the 1844 edition). F-X Bichat (1771-1802) Famous french physician and anatomist. Garrison's History of Medicine refers to him as the creator of descriptive anatomy. His book Recherches physiologiques sur la vie et la mort was first published in 1800. According to Garrison and Morton: "When Volta questioned the validity of experiments claiming to show responsiveness of an ex vivo heart, devoid of blood flow and nervous connections, Bichat obtained permission to experiment upon the freshly killed bodies of those guillotined during the French Revolution. His trials on both laboratory animals and human cadavers led him to conclude that cardiac excitation by electricity would occur only when the organ was stimulated by direct contact." [Garrison & Morton 597 - listing 1800 ed.; Caillet 1149; Osler 1303 - listing the 1844 edition].