Complete Record - Heirs of Hippocrates No. 950

THEOPHILE DE BORDEU (1722-1776) Recherches anatomiques sur la position des glandes et sur leur action. Chez G. F. Quillau 1751 xxiv, 520, 86 pp. 16.2 cm.

Bordeu, a graduate of Montpellier and the principal representative of clinical medicine in eighteenth-century France, was the chief representative if not the founder of the school of Vitalism. In the present work, the author sets forth his hypothesis of this vital power with regard to internal secretion: that every organ, tissue, and cell discharges, into the blood, products which influence the function of other parts of the body. In some ways a forerunner of the science of endocrinology, Bordeu's theory was based on speculation rather than rigid scientific investigation. But his theories were rather widely held and had their counterparts in similar "schools" and hypotheses in other European countries.

Cited references: Waller 1306; Wellcome II, p. 203

Gift of John Martin, M.D.