Bichat, Marie François Xavier

11/11/1771–7/2/1802
FRENCH
ANATOMIST, PATHOLOGIST, PHYSIOLOGIST

The French anatomist, pathologist, and physiologist Marie François Xavier Bichat was a pioneer in the field of forensic science. He was the founder of animal histology, the microscopic study of animal tissues.

Bichat was born in Thoirett, France. His father, a physician, was his first teacher of anatomy. He studied anatomy and surgery at Montpellier and Lyons and later served as an assistant to P. J. Desault, a famous physician at the Hôtel-Dieu, a hospital in Paris. In 1799, Bichat, after the death of Desault, became physician at the Hôtel-Dieu. From 1800 onward, he abandoned surgery and did only research in anatomy, performing as many as 600 autopsies in a single year. He investigated the structure of the body generally, rather than studying particular organs as separate entities. He broke down the organs into their common elemental materials, for which he introduced the term "tissues."

Bichat rejected the notion of iatrochemistry, the assumption that disorders in human health were caused by an imbalance in the chemical relations of fluids in the body. He also rejected Stahl's animism, which maintained that there is a special spirit of life. Bichat was a follower of Albrecht von Haller's philosophy of vitalism, which states that the body possesses some truly vital functions such as motion, communication, and sensibility, while other characteristics of the body are not vital. In other words, he rejected the old theory that life is a collection of subtle fluids and maintained rather that life is a result of a combination of vitality and the vital functions of various tissues of the body. Bichat also rejected the reductionist philosophy, which states that all biological phenomena have to be reducible to the laws of physics and chemistry—an attitude prevalent in his own time. Bichat's definition was that life consists of the sum of functions by which death is resisted. One of his most interesting works is Physiological Researches on Life and Death.

Bichat's experimental work had great influence and was long quoted as a model of experimental exactitude and penetrating insight. In this context it is interesting to note that Bichat steadfastly refused to make use of the most advanced experimental tool for anatomy, namely, the microscope. His frenetic activity weakened him, and in 1802, after a fall from the Hôtel-Dieu's staircase, he contracted a fever and died on July 22; he was only 31 years old.