With the recent development of post-graduate education the College de
France has become a favorite shrine of pilgrimage for educators who
visit Paris. It represents the oldest educational institution
deliberately founded with the idea of combining teaching with
investigation. The professors were not bound to teach definite
doctrines, literary or scientific, but to give rather the results of
recent investigations and personal meditation on great scientific and
philosophic problems. The college was not meant, in a word, so much
for students as for specialists. It was intended not to convey a
definite body of knowledge on any subject, but rather to round out the
knowledge acquired in the regular course at the University of Paris,
and to dwell particularly on recent lines of advance in special
subjects in a manner that would encourage original investigation.
In a word, the College de France was the first modern post-graduate
school. We have learned in recent years how important are
post-graduate departments for their influence on the regular work of a
university. Unless original investigation of a high order is
constantly done at a university, it is inevitable that the regular
course will cease to be up to date. Modern educators are coming to
realize very forcibly this quality of a successful teaching
institution. Hence the interest that will surely continue to grow in
the College de France, its foundation, its history, its teachers, and
its methods.
To the great majority of those who come to pay their respects at this
shrine of original investigation, it will prove a {272} distinct
surprise to find the centre of the court of the College de France
occupied by a statue of Claude Bernard. Bernard is not well known, and
is still less appreciated out of scientific circles. By many it is
forgotten that the original free school, the _College de trois
langues_, in which Hebrew, Greek, and Latin were the only chairs, has
extended its scope, and that in our day the natural sciences represent
the most fertile field of its achievements. The absolute freedom of
opinion guaranteed to professors originally, and which constituted the
principal reason for an educational institution apart from the
University of Paris and its trammels, has proved a precious heritage
to later generations. Science has flourished vigorously, and the
memorial to its representative cultivator at the college in this
century has deservedly been given the place of honor in its court.
To the initiate, however, for whom, in medicine and physiology and
general biology, his work is still an inspiration, many points of
interest around the college will have all their attraction from
associations with Claude Bernard's career. His neglect by the popular
mind is more than compensated for by the fervent admiration of all
those who are occupied with investigations along the lines he
followed. For in him they recognize a master mind such as is given to
a branch of science not more than once in a century; the veritable
possessor of a magician's wand, who knows how to disclose the hidden
veins of precious ore, the exploitation of which will prove a source
of riches to so many faithful followers. For these the dark little
laboratory of the college in which Bernard made so many of his
ground-breaking discoveries will be in the nature of a shrine to which
one comes with grateful memories of the _genius loci_ that was. The
apartment across the street at No. 40 Rue des Ecoles, where Bernard
lived for years, will be the term of many a pilgrimage. Scientists
{273} from all over the world will wander from here out to the
laboratory in the Jardin des Plantes, where Bernard's work was done in
his later years, and where the fundamental problems of life--plant and
animal--usurped the attention that had at first been devoted
exclusively to human physiology and its allied sciences.
Claude Bernard is another and a striking illustration of the
historical tradition that great men usually come from the country, and
not infrequently from poor parents. He was born in 1813, at St.
Julien, not far from Lyons, almost in the centre of France. His father
owned a small farm in the Beaujolais wine district. The little estate
came later into Bernard's hands, and when he could afford the time he
spent his summers there. When the air is clear the white summits of
the Alps can be seen, and they make a pleasing contrast to the plains
along the Saone and the hill-sides of the immediate neighborhood, all
covered with vineyards. The physiologist, who enjoyed nature very
much, speaks enthusiastically of his "little verdant summer nest."
He was educated at the Jesuit school of Villefranche. It will be
recalled that Theodore Schwann was also a student of the Jesuits. In
these days, when Jesuit educational training is impugned, the facts
are worth noting. It is claimed especially that the old-fashioned
training by means of the classics is narrowing. The old method of a
definitely prescribed course of study for every student is said to
hamper development. Slavish devotion to old pedagogic methods, it is
urged, cannot but shackle and destroy initiative. The subordinate
place of the sciences in this scheme of education is said to hinder
progress in the sciences later in life, to leave the powers of
observation undeveloped until too late, and to distract the mind of
the student too much from the practical side of life. Here are two men
whose lives are {274} an open contradiction to all the allegations of
the opponents of the old Jesuit system of training. Needless to say
that they are but two of many.
Bernard pursued the course with the Jesuits at the College de
Villefranche as far as it went. After this we find him at Lyons, at
first pursuing studies in philosophy in preparation for his
baccalaureate degree, evidently with the idea of eventually entering
the university. Family reasons, mainly financial, compelled him to
give up his studies, and for nearly two years he was an assistant in a
pharmacy in Lyons. Here he developed a skepticism with regard to the
effect of the drugs he compounded that led later in life to his
important studies on the physiological action of remedies.
The science of therapeutics was at that time in a most inchoate stage.
Very little was known of the exact action of drugs. Exaggerated claims
were made for many, but mainly on uncertain clinical experience. The
modern, patent medicine was as yet unknown, but something not unlike
it had become popular among the patrons of the Lyons pharmacy. One
remedy was in constant demand by city patrons and by country people,
who came from long distances especially to procure it. It was known as
_la theriaque_--"the cure"--I suppose from some fancied connection
with the root of the word therapeutics.
This remedy, according to the old women of the neighborhood and the
countryside, was a panacea for every ill that flesh is heir to, and a
few others besides (_pro morbis omnibus cognitis et quibusdam aliis_).
The composition of this wonder-worker was even more interesting than
its universal curative efficacy. Whenever a drug spoiled from too long
keeping, or an error in its manufacture made it unavailable for the
purpose for which it was originally intended, or whenever an
involuntary mistake in compounding occurred, the {275} assistants in
the pharmacy were directed not to throw the drugs away, but to reserve
them for "la theriaque." "Mettez vous cela de cote pour la theriaque"
(put that aside for "la theriaque") was a standing order in the shop.
From a remedy of such varied ingredients the most wonderful effects
could be expected and were secured. An unexpected action of the
remedy, however, was that produced on Bernard's mind. This influence
was later to lead to the healing of numberless ills in the system of
therapeutics, and to bring about the establishment of the sciences of
experimental pharmacology and physiology.
Bernard developed literary ambitions while at work in the pharmacy. He
spent many of his free evenings at the theatre, and wrote a musical
comedy, "The Rose of the Rhone," which was acted with some success. He
worked at a prose drama, and, thinking the possibilities of life too
narrow in Lyons, he resolved to go to Paris. With his play in his
pocket, and a letter of introduction to the distinguished critic, St.
Marc Girardin, he reached the capital. Bernard's drama, "Arthur de
Bretagne," was published after his death, and shows that its author
possessed literary talent of a high order. This must have been evident
to Girardin, to whom it was given to read; but he very wisely advised
its author to eschew literature, at least for a time, until he was
able to make his living by some other means. Girardin advised Bernard
to take up the study of medicine, for which his work in pharmacy had
already prepared him somewhat.
Bernard, having once made up his mind to pursue medicine, threw
himself, as was his wont, enthusiastically into the study of it. The
utmost frugality was necessary in order to enable him to live on the
scant income that could be allowed him from home. He lived with a
fellow-student in a garret in the Quartier Latin. Their one room was
study and {276} sleeping room, and even, on occasion, kitchen. When a
"box" came from home, utensils were borrowed from the laboratory for
whatever cooking was necessary.
Bernard was especially interested in anatomy, and soon made himself
known by the perfection of his dissections. Physiology attracted him
not for what was known in the science, but for the many problems as
yet unsolved. His was above all a mind not prone to accept scientific
teaching on the _ipse dixit_ of a professor. Except in the
dissecting-room, his work attracted no attention. He was not looked
upon as a brilliant student, and yet all the while he was
unconsciously preparing himself thoroughly for his life-work. Later on
his dissecting skill was to be a most helpful acquisition. Bernard's
first promising opening came unexpectedly. The nicety with which he
did certain dissecting work in preparation for one of Magendie's
lessons attracted the attention of the professor, at that time the
greatest living experimental physiologist. Magendie, in his bluff,
characteristic way, without asking further about him, called out one
day: "I say, you there, I take you as my _preparateur_ at the College
de France."
This position was gladly accepted by Bernard, for it provided him with
an income sufficient to support himself. The work was congenial. His
duty was to prepare the specimens and make ready the demonstrations
for Magendie's lectures. His career as a physiologist dates from this
appointment. He had to give some private lessons, and do what is
called "coaching," or "tutoring," to eke out his slender income, but
in the main his time after this was entirely devoted to investigation
and experiment.
His first investigation concerned stomach digestion. It was important
mainly because it directed his mind to digestive questions. In these
he was to make his great discoveries. {277} His first independent
investigation concerned the differences to be found in the digestive
apparatuses and functions of the carnivora and herbivora--that is, of
the meat and plant-eating animals. The differences in the natural
habits of these two classes of animals had long been noted. While the
meat-eaters invariably bolt their food, the plant-eaters chew theirs
very carefully. Many of these latter, like the cow, are
ruminants--that is, they bring up their food to chew it over again at
their leisure. The instinct that makes them do this is most precious.
Their food is mainly composed of starch, in the digestion of which the
saliva takes a large part. The thorough mixture of the food with
saliva, then, is an extremely important matter. Human beings, who are
both herbivorous and carnivorous, must learn to masticate thoroughly
at least the starch-containing portions of the food. Bernard's first
researches concerned the nerves that supplied the salivary glands, and
which consequently influence the flow of saliva. Curiously enough, the
conclusions of his first experiments were erroneous. The topic led
him, however, into the general subject of the influence of nerves upon
glandular secretion, a problem that he was destined to illustrate in
many ways.
After the salivary glands the most important structure for the
digestion of starches in the animal economy is the pancreas. It was
early evident, however, that the pancreatic secretion effected more
than the conversion merely of starch into sugar. Its most important
role, that of influencing the digestion and absorption of fats, was
only recognized as the result of a classical observation of Bernard's
upon the rabbit. He noticed that fat introduced into the digestive
tract of a rabbit undergoes no change until it has advanced a
considerable distance beyond the stomach. When fat is introduced into
the dog's digestive apparatus a marked change {278} begins in it
almost as soon as it leaves the stomach. At first this seemed very
mysterious. Observations were made over and over again, always with
the same result. There was evidently some important distinction
between the intestines of the two animals. Careful investigation
showed that the difference between the behavior of the fat in the
rabbit and the dog was due to the presence or absence of the
pancreatic fluid from the intestinal contents. In the dog the
pancreatic duct which carries the secretion of the gland to the
intestine empties into the intestine just beyond the stomach. In the
rabbit the duct and its secretion empty into the intestine only some
eight to ten inches below the intestinal orifice of the stomach. It is
just beyond where the pancreatic duct reaches the intestine in both
animals that the digestion of fat begins. This observation solved the
seeming mystery of fat digestion, and at the same time made clear the
importance of the pancreatic secretion in the general work of
digestion.
Bernard's attention was directed by this first observation to the
other properties of the pancreatic fluid. He soon demonstrated by
experiment, not only that it split up fats into fatty acids and
glycerin, and so made their absorption possible, but that it had a
powerful action upon proteids--that is, upon the albuminous portions
of the food, and also upon the starches and sugars. Up to this time
the principal role in digestion had been assigned to the stomach and
the gastric juice. After Bernard's observations it was evident that
the action of the stomach was mainly preliminary to intestinal
digestion, and that the chief work in the preparation of food for
absorption into the system was really accomplished by the secretion of
the pancreas. It took some years to make all this clear. Much of the
advance in our knowledge of the effect of pancreatic juice upon
proteids--that is, upon meat and other albuminous materials--is due to
Kuehne, a pupil {279} of Bernard; but not only did the inspiration for
the pupil's work come from the master, but the important fundamental
principle of pancreatic proteolysis--_i.e._, the solution of proteids
by pancreatic secretion--was clearly laid down in Bernard's original
publications on the subject. Only in our own day has come the greatest
confirmation of the notion then first introduced into physiology, of
the surpassing importance of intestinal digestion. The removal of the
whole stomach for malignant disease is now undertaken without any
fears as to the ultimate result on the patient's general nutrition.
The operation has been done many times, and the surgeon's confidence
that the intestines would compensate, as far as digestion of food was
concerned, for the absent stomach has been amply justified. Patients
who survived the operation have all gained in weight, and some of them
have enjoyed better health than for years before the removal of their
stomachs.
From his studies of the pancreas, Bernard, whose mind was always of a
very practical bent, was very naturally led to the study of that
puzzling disease, diabetes. The question of how sugar was absorbed
into the system was an interesting one even at that time. It was not
realized, as it is now, that saccharine material was a most valuable
food-stuff. Its use in the world's great armies of recent years has
brought sugar very prominently before the medical profession of
to-day. The bone and sinew for hard fighting and exhausting marches
would not seem to be derivable from the favorite dainty of the child,
which has besides fallen into such disrepute as a health disturber;
yet tons upon tons of sweets are now shipped to fighting armies, and
are distributed in their rations when especially hard work is required
of them. Bernard did not quite realize that he was attacking, in the
question of the digestion and consumption of sugar in the system, one
of the {280} most important problems of nutrition, especially as far
as regards the production of heat.
Sugar is a substance that dissolves easily and in considerable
quantity in water. When in solution it easily passes through an animal
membrane by osmosis, and so the question of its absorption seemed
simple enough. The disease diabetes showed, however, that sugar might
exist very plentifully in the blood and yet the nutrition of an
individual suffer very much for the lack of it. Something else beside
its mere presence in the system was necessary to secure its
consumption by the tissues. Bernard thought that the liver was active
in the consumption of sugar, and that disease of this organ caused
diabetes. He therefore secured some of the blood going to the liver of
a living animal and some of the blood that was just leaving it. To his
surprise the blood leaving the liver contained more sugar than that
entering it. After assuring himself that his observations were
correct, he tried his experiments in different ways. He found that
even in the blood leaving the liver of an animal that had been fed
only on substances containing no sugar, sugar could be demonstrated.
Even in a fasting animal the liver itself and the blood leaving it
showed the presence of a form of sugar. The only possible conclusion
from this was that the liver was capable of manufacturing this form of
sugar out of non-sugar-containing material, or even from the blood of
a fasting animal.
This was the first time in physiology that the idea of an internal
secretion was advanced. Glands within the body that gave off a
secretion always possessed a duct by which this secretion was
conducted to where it was to produce its effect. The idea that glands
exist which pour their secretion directly into the blood-stream had
not occurred.
This branch of physiology has developed wonderfully since {281}
Bernard's discovery. The chapter of the functions of the ductless
glands is one of the most interesting and most practical in modern
medicine. The spleen, the thyroid, the suprarenal glands have taken on
a new significance. Mysteries of disease have been solved, and, most
wonderful of all, we have learned that many of the substances derived
from these glands, when not present in the human body, may be
effectually supplied by corresponding substances from animals, with
results upon suffering human beings that are little short of
marvellous. To mention but one example: the stunted, idiotic child
that, because of congenital absence of the thyroid gland, formerly
grew up to be a repellent, weak-minded man or woman, can now in a few
short months be made the peer of most of its kind. All the modern
tissue-therapy, with its hopeful outlook, is due to Bernard's
far-reaching conclusions from his experiments upon sugar digestion and
absorption.
His studies on sugar logically led Bernard to the investigation of
heat production and heat regulation in the human body. Glycogen, the
sugary substance produced by the liver, occurs abundantly in all the
muscles of the body, and it was evident that muscular movement leads
to its consumption and the consequent production of heat. Sugar is a
carbon-containing substance, and its combustion always produces
energy. The question of heat regulation was a much more complicated
problem. Heat is always being produced in the human body and always
being given off. Very different amounts of heat are required to keep
up the temperature of the human body in the winter and summer seasons.
Near the pole or at the equator man's temperature in health is always
the same. To secure this identity of temperature some very delicately
balanced mechanism is required. Without the most nicely adjusted
equilibrium of heat production and dissemination human tissues would
soon freeze up at a {282} temperature of 70 deg. below zero, or the
albumin of the body fluids and muscular tissue coagulate at a
temperature above 110 deg. F.
While engaged in the investigation of this interesting problem Claude
Bernard found that the cutting of the sympathetic nerves in the neck
of a rabbit was followed by increased heat on the side of the head
supplied by the nerve, and that this increased heat coincided with
heightened sensibility and greater blood-supply in the parts affected.
Here was an important factor in heat regulation laid bare. It was
evident that the sympathetic nerve trunk supplied filaments to the
small arteries, and that when these nerves no longer acted, as after
the cutting of the nerve trunk, these arteries were no longer
controlled by the nervous system and became dilated. The presence of
more blood than usual in the tissues and its slower flow gave occasion
to more chemical changes in the part than before, and consequently to
the production of more heat.
These vasomotor nerves, as they have been called, because they preside
over the dilatation and contraction of the walls of the bloodvessels
(vasa) of the body, are now known to play an important role in every
function. When food enters the stomach, it is dilatation of the
gastric arteries, brought on by the reflex irritation of the presence
of food, that causes the secretion of the gastric juices necessary for
digestion. It is the disturbance of this delicate nervous mechanism
that gives rise to the many forms of nervous dyspepsia so common in
our day. It is its disturbance also that makes digestion so imperfect
at moments of intense emotion, or that makes severe mental or bodily
exertion after the taking of food extremely inadvisable. The vasomotor
nerves, however, control much more than heat processes and digestion.
The familiar blushing is an example of it, and blushes may occur {283}
in any organ. Excitement paralyzes the efforts of some individuals,
but renders others especially acute. It is probable that the
regulation of the blood-supply to the brain has much to do with this.
While one student always does well in an oral examination, another, as
well gifted, may always do poorly. Just as there are those who cannot
control the vasomotor nerves of the face, and blush furiously with
almost no provocation, so there are brain-blushers in whom the rush of
blood interferes with proper intellection. On the other hand, there
are those, and they are not always unaware of it, in whom the slight
disturbance of the facial vasomotor mechanism only gives rise to a
pleasing heightened color, and in the same way the increased
blood-supply to the brain only gives them more intellectual acumen.
These two discoveries by Bernard--the formation of sugar by the liver
and the nervous vasomotor mechanism--are, in their far-reaching
application and their precious suggestiveness for other investigators,
the most significant advances in physiology of the nineteenth century.
They are directly due to a great imaginative faculty informing a most
fertile inquiring spirit. Bernard was very different from his master,
Magendie, in his applications of the experimental method. Magendie's
researches were made more or less at random in the great undiscovered
regions of physiology. He made his experiments as so many questions of
nature. He cared not what the answer might be. He seldom had an
inkling beforehand where his experiments might carry him. As he said
himself, he was a rag-picker by the dust-heap of science, hoping to
glean where others had missed treasures, and not knowing what his
stick might turn up next. Bernard's experiments were always made with
a definite idea as to what he sought. Not infrequently his
pre-conceived theory proved to be a mistake. It is of the very {284}
genius of the man that he was able to recognize such errors, and that
he did not attempt to divert the results of experiments so as to
bolster up what looked like eminently rational theories. The
imaginative faculty that had come so near perverting him to literature
was a precious source of inspiration and initiative in his scientific
work. It was not followed as an infallible guide, however, but only as
a suggestive director of the course investigation should take.
Besides the important discoveries made by Bernard there are two minor
investigations, successfully accomplished, that deserve a passing
word. To Claude Bernard we owe the use of curare in physiological
experimentation. Curare is an Indian arrow poison which absolutely
prevents all muscular movement. If artificial respiration is kept up,
however, the animal lives on indefinitely, and no motion will disturb
the progress of the most delicate experiment. In Bernard's time it was
thought that the drug did not affect the sensory nervous system at
all, and that as a consequence, though absolutely immobile, the animal
might be suffering the most excruciating pain. We now know that the
sensory system is also affected, and that the animal in these
experiments suffers little if at all.
Bernard's investigation of the effect of carbonic oxide gas will
probably be of more practical benefit to this generation and the next
than it was to his. Like most of Bernard's discoveries, this one threw
great light on important questions in physiology quite apart from the
subject under investigation. Carbonic oxide is the gas produced by
incomplete combustion of coal. The blue flames on the surface of a
coal fire when coal is freshly added are mainly composed of this gas
in combustion. From burning charcoal it is given off in considerable
quantities. The gas is extremely poisonous. Unlike carbon dioxide,
which does harm by shutting off the supply {285} of oxygen, carbonic
oxide is actively poisonous. After death the blood of its victims,
instead of being of a dark reddish-blue, is of a bright pinkish-red.
Bernard's study of the change that had taken place in the blood showed
that the hemoglobin of the red blood-cells had united with the
carbonic oxide present in the lungs to form a stable compound. The
usual interchange of oxygen and carbon dioxide in the tissues could
not take place. The combinations formed between oxygen and carbon
dioxide and the hemoglobin of the blood readily submit to exchanges of
their gaseous elements, and so respiratory processes are kept up.
Before Bernard's discovery it was thought that the respiratory oxygen
was mostly carried dissolved in the blood-plasma--that is, in the
watery part of the blood--or at least that its combination was a
physical rather than a chemical process. This idea was overthrown by
the discovery that the carbonic oxide combination with hemoglobin was
very permanent. The role of the red blood-cell in internal respiration
took on a new importance because of the discovery, and the
comprehension of anaemic states of the system became much easier.
About the middle of his career Bernard suffered from a succession of
attacks of a mysterious malady that we now recognize to have been
appendicitis. Once at least his life was despaired of, and recurring
attacks made life miserable. After a year of enforced rest on the old
farm of his boyhood, now become his own, he seems to have recovered
more or less completely. His health, however, was never so robust as
before. Toward the end of his life he lived alone. His wife and
daughters were separated from him, and one of the daughters devoted
her time and means to suffering animals in order to make up, as she
proclaimed, for all her father's cruelty.
{286}
Bernard lived almost directly opposite to the College de France, in a
small apartment in the rue des Ecoles. An old family servant took care
of him, and his life was one of uttermost simplicity, devoted only to
science. Once at court, in 1869, Napoleon III insisted on knowing,
after an hour's conversation with him, what he could do for him.
Bernard asked only for new facilities for his experimental work, and
new apparatus and space for his laboratory.
Honors came to him, but left him modest as before. He was elected a
member of the French Academy--one of the forty immortals. Only five
times in the history of the Academy has the honor of membership been
conferred upon a medical man. Before Bernard, Flourens, the father of
brain physiology, had occupied a _fauteuil_, while Cabanis and Vicq
d'Azyr are two other names of medical immortals.
Bernard was elected to the 24th _fauteuil_, which had been occupied by
Flourens, and according to custom had to pronounce his predecessor's
panegyric. The conclusion of his address was the expression: "There is
no longer a line of demarcation between physiology and psychology."
Physiology had become the all-ruler for Bernard in human function, and
he drifted into what would have been simple materialism only for the
saving grace of his own utter sanity, his active imagination, and the
unconscious influence of early training. During his most successful
years of scientific investigation, wrapped up in his experiments and
their suggestions, Bernard was drawn far away from the spiritual side
of things. This partial view of man and nature could not endure,
however. In an article on Bernard in the _Revue des Questions
scientifiques_ for April, 1880, Father G. Hahn, S. J., says of him: "A
man of such uprightness of character could not be allowed to persist
to the end in this restless skepticism. His mental condition was
really a kind of vertigo caused by the {287} depths of nature that he
saw all around him. At the threshold of eternity he came back to his
true self and his good sense triumphed. The great physiologist died a
true Christian."
Bernard was one of the great thinkers of an age whose progress in
science will stamp it as one of the most successful periods of advance
in human thought. He accomplished much, but much more he seemed to
have divined. He seldom gave out the slightest hint of the tendencies
of his mind, or of his expectations of discovery in matters of
science, until fully satisfied that his theoretic considerations were
justified and confirmed by observation and experiment. In one thing,
however, he allowed favored friends to share some of his
anticipations, and the notes published after his death show that he
was on the very point of another great discovery in biology which has
since been made. He was a firm friend of Pasteur's, and had ably
seconded the great chemist-biologist's efforts to disprove spontaneous
generation. Bernard's demonstration that air passed through a tube
heated red hot might be suffered with impunity to come in contact with
any sort of organic material, yet would never cause the development of
germ life, was an important link in the proof that if life were
carefully destroyed, no life, however microscopic in character, would
develop unless the seeds of previously existent life were somehow
brought in contact with the organic matter.
With regard to fermentation, too, Bernard was for many years in close
accord with Pasteur, who taught that fermentation was the result of
the chemical activity of living cells, the ferments. Toward the end of
his life Bernard came to the view, however, that the action of
ferments was really due to the presence in them of chemically active
substances called diastases. These substances are of varied chemical
{288} composition, but each one has a constant formula. Their presence
in a fermentescible solution is sufficient of itself, even in the
absence of living cells, to bring about fermentation. It has since
been shown that after this substance is removed from ferment-cells by
pressure, and the liquid carefully filtered so that absolutely no
cells remain, fermentation will yet take place.
This does not disprove the necessity for life to produce the diastases
originally, though it advances science a step beyond the theory that
it is the actual vital interchange of nutritious substances within the
ferment-cell that causes fermentation. With each step of advance in
biological science the mystery of life and its processes deepens.
No one has done more to bring out the depths there are in vital
function than Bernard. His early training was of the type that is,
according to many prominent educators of our day, least calculated to
develop originality of view, or capacity for initiating new lines of
thought. Our pedagogic Solons would claim that the narrow orthodoxy
that wrapped itself around his developmental years must surely stifle
the precious genius for investigation that was in him. It is due, on
the contrary, very probably to the thorough conservatism of his early
training and the rounded fulness of the mental development acquired
under the old system of classical education, that we have to chronicle
of Bernard none of the errors by exaggeration of personal bias that
are so common among even great scientific men. Few successful men have
ever owed less to luck or to favoring circumstances in life. He was in
the best sense a self-made man, and he owed his success to a large
liberality of mind that enabled him to grasp things in their true
proportions. With an imaginative faculty that constantly outstripped
his experimental observations he was singularly free from prejudgment
and was able to {289} control his theories by what he found, never
allowing them to warp his powers of observation. Bernard is without
doubt the greatest example of the century that a fully rounded
youthful training is much more favorable to successful investigation
than the early specialization which is falsely supposed to foster it.
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