thus pointed out was not quite new, for
Grimaud, professor of physiology in the University of Montpellier,
had earlier made what was substantially the same classification of the
functions into "internal or digestive and external or locomotive"; but
it was Bichat's exposition that gave currency to the idea.

Far more important, however, was another classification which Bichat put
forward in his work on anatomy, published just at the beginning of the
last century. This was the division of all animal structures into what
Bichat called tissues, and the pointing out that there are really only
a few kinds of these in the body, making up all the diverse organs. Thus
muscular organs form one system; membranous organs another; glandular
organs a third; the vascular mechanism a fourth, and so on. The
distinction is so obvious that it seems rather difficult to conceive
that it could have been overlooked by the earliest anatomists; but, in
point of fact, it is only obvious because now it has been familiarly
taught for almost a century. It had never been given explicit expression
before the time of Bichat, though it is said that Bichat himself was
somewhat indebted for it to his master, Desault, and to the famous
alienist Pinel.

However that may be, it is certain that all subsequent anatomists have
found Bichat's classification of the tissues of the utmost value in
their studies of the animal functions. Subsequent advances were to
show that the distinction between the various tissues is not really
so fundamental as Bichat supposed, but that takes nothing from the
practical value of the famous classification.

It was but a step from this scientific classification of tissues to a
similar classification of the diseases affecting them, and this was one
of the greatest steps towards placing medicine on the plane of an exact
science. This subject of these branches completely fascinated Bichat,
and he exclaimed, enthusiastically: "Take away some fevers and nervous
trouble, and all else belongs to the kingdom of pathological anatomy."
But out of this enthusiasm came great results. Bichat practised as he
preached, and, believing that it was only possible to understand disease
by observing the symptoms carefully at the bedside, and, if the disease
terminated fatally, by post-mortem examination, he was so arduous in his
pursuit of knowledge that within a period of less than six months he had
made over six hundred autopsies--a record that h