SPECIAL FEATURE – HISTORY OF NEUROLOGY Claude Bernard JMS Pearce MD, FRCP Emeritus Consultant Neurologist, Department of Neurology, Hull Royal Infirmary, UK. “Mais la méthode expérimentale a pour objet de transformer Correspondence to: cette conception a priori fondée sur une intuition..., en une J.M.S. Pearce, 304 Beverley Road Anlaby, East Yorks, HU10 7BG, UK. Email:
[email protected] interprétation a posteriori établie sur l’étude expérimentale des phénomènes...” Claude Bernard: Introduction à l’étude de la Conflict of Interest statement: None declared. médecine expérimentale. Date first submitted: 10/7/17 [“But the experimental method aims at transforming this Acceptance date: 11/07/17 a priori conception based on a vague intuition...into an a To cite: Pearce JMS, ACNR 2017;17(2);14-15 posteriori interpretation established on the experimental study of phenomena...”] he name Claude Bernard (1813-1878) lodgings with Charles Lasègue. He studied ings of the liver and showed that not only did it is known across the world to medical under François Magendie (1783-1855) in the secrete bile but was, like the pancreas, an ‘organ T students for the Claude Bernard-Horner’s Hotel Dieu. Magendie, impressed by Bernard’s of internal secretions’ (enzymes) that converted syndrome; but more important are his ground- dissecting skills appointed him in 1841 as labora- glycogen into glucose (glycogenolysis), and breaking works in physiology, particularly tory assistant. could store glucose in the form of glycogen homeostasis. Peter Wise provides an excellent, An ‘arranged marriage’ with the prosperous (glycogenesis).5 detailed account of his life and bibliography.1 Marie Françoise Martin was engineered in 1845 To see whether the release of glucose from Claude Bernard was one of the epoch- by his mentors, Pierre Rayer and Théophile- liver glycogen depended on a neural stimulus making giants of experimental medicine, Jules Pelouze to allow their protégé to develop via the vagus, in a classical experiment in who dominated the nineteenth century.