An introduction to the study of experimental medicine / Translated by H.C. Greene.

  • Bernard, Claude, 1813-1878.
Date:
(1865), 1927/1949
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Licence: In copyright

Credit: An introduction to the study of experimental medicine / Translated by H.C. Greene. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by UCL Library Services. The original may be consulted at UCL (University College London)

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    Introduction to the Study of Experimental Medicine BY CLAUDE BERNARD Claude Bernard's Introduction to the Study oj Experimental Medicine, first published in 1865, is a classic of the philosophy of science. ... Its title may have misled readers into expecting a technical treatise on physiology; it is in fact an essay on method not unworthy to be classed with that of Descartes. We shall not find here the pretensions to system, arrangement, and thorough- ness of more elaborate treatises on scientific method. Here everything is said directly, simply, without pretentiousness or pseudo-profundity; we can almost hear the harpsichord playing in the background. But there is nothing forced or con- trived in this elegance; every page is informed with the judgment and educated memory of a superb experimenter. We seem to be always in the presence of a person, meditating upon a lifetime's experience of creative research. {Max Black, Professor of Philosophy at Cornell Uni rersity.) The Introduction is more than a classic; it is a classic which is still read. It is io fact among the One Hundred Great Books which comprise the basic curriculum of St. John's College. For many readers the most interesting and valuable part of the Introduction will always be Bernard's descriptions of the successive steps of each of his principal discoveries and his con- sequent deduction of the way in which the mind of a scientist goes to work upon a problem. Bernard is the founder of experimental medi cine, i.e., the artificial production of disease by means of chemical and physical manipulation. His research in physiology, which is the founda- tion of scientific medicine and the most inipor tant part of biology, has immortalized his name Said a foreign scientist, Claude Bernard is not merely a physiologist, he is physiology.