Claude Bernard

Claude Bernard was the founder of experimental physiology, discovering the digestive function of the pancreas, the glycogenic function of the liver, the vasomotor nerves and the action of curare, working in a damp Paris laboratory that ruined his health. An Introduction to the Study of Experimental Medicine of 1865 is the philosophy of that work: that medicine must become a science through controlled experiment, hypothesis and the doubt that keeps the observer honest, and that living things keep a constant internal environment. It was the book that Pasteur and Zola read, and Adler’s list places it among the founding works of medicine beside Harvey and Galen.