Claude Bernard

French physiologist (1813-1878) · France · Politicians · Died at 64

Claude Bernard is read about 298 times a day, in 60 languages.

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The man who discovered that the body is its own universe - a sealed world keeping its own constants no matter what hell breaks loose outside.

Doctors Politician Politics Medicine Chemistry France Europe 19th Century

A life in dates

1878Died10 February 18781876Copley MedalAward1875Baly MedalAward1865“Considered in itself, the experimental method is nothing but reasoning by whose help we methodically submit our ideas to experience, - the experience of facts.”In their wordsPreface, p. 2Read the whole statement

“In sciences of observation, man observes and reasons experimentally, but he does not experiment; and in this sense we might say that a science of observation is a passive science.”In their wordsPart I, Ch. I, p. 18Read the whole statement

“The experimental method draws from within itself an impersonal authority which dominates science.”In their wordsPart I, Ch. II, p. 42Read the whole statement

“A contemporary poet has characterized this sense of the personality of art and of the impersonality of science in these words, - "Art is myself, science is ourselves.”In their wordsPart I, Ch. II, p. 43Read the whole statement

“Science, in humbling our pride, proportionately increases our power.”In their wordsPart II, Ch. I, p. 82Read the whole statement

“When we meet a fact which contradicts a prevailing theory, we must accept the fact and abandon the theory, even when the theory is supported by great names and generally accepted.”In their wordsPart III, Ch. I, p. 164Read the whole statement

1864Foreign Member of the Royal SocietyAward1813Born12 July 1813

Also in Deutsch

Photos 8

Claude Bernard 5

-Claude Bernard- CIPB2099

Apparatus for electrical stimulation of nerves Wellcome M0011390

Apparatus used in experiments in curare, C. Bernard Wellcome M0014744

Bernard and Helmholtz's Zsolnay ceramics (1881) at UVS Physiology lecture hall portal, 2016 Erzsébetváros

Bernard Claude

Bernard Pavlov Leiden 2019

Bernard Pavlov Leiden

In their own words 10

Claude Bernard

10 statements, newest first

Considered in itself, the experimental method is nothing but reasoning by whose help we methodically submit our ideas to experience, - the experience of facts.
1865, Preface, p. 2, Own words
The science of life […] is a superb and dazzlingly lighted hall which may be reached only by passing through a long and ghastly kitchen.
1865, Part I, Ch. I, p. 15, Own words
In sciences of observation, man observes and reasons experimentally, but he does not experiment; and in this sense we might say that a science of observation is a passive science.
1865, Part I, Ch. I, p. 18, Own words

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Awards

Copley Medal1876

Baly Medal1875

Foreign Member of the Royal Society1864

Commander of the Legion of Honour

Family

Parents

Claude Bernard

Partners

Spouse Marie Françoise Bernard

Children

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About this person

Claude Bernard was born in France on 12 July 1813 and spent his life mapping the invisible. He was a physiologist who saw what others missed: that living things don't just react to their surroundings, they maintain an internal environment - a milieu intérieur - that holds steady against chaos. The insight reshaped biology, and though Walter Cannon later gave it the name homeostasis, the concept belonged to Bernard first. Harvard's I. Bernard Cohen called him "one of the greatest of all men of science," a verdict the work still bears out. He died 10 February 1878, having turned the body into a country with borders.

Country

France

Politicians from France 6

Philippe de Gaulle59.6

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