Dog-Murderer or Great Man of Science?

In the 1700s, there was a fine line between science and butchery

A hanged criminal is dissected in William Hogarth’s “The Reward of Cruelty” (Wikimedia Commons)

We take for granted that we know all about the workings of the different parts of the human body. We understand how the lungs provide oxygen for the blood, how the heart pumps that blood to every extremity of the body, and how the brain controls the whole process. We can see how the interruption of these systems can be dangerous, even deadly.

I’m glad we live in a world where we know these things, but I was shocked to find out that one of the pioneers of anatomy discovered these facts in a series of grisly and cruel experiments.

It was the height of the Enlightenment, and Marie Francois Xavier Bichat was among the scientists who made France in the late 1700s a hub of discovery. He was one of the most important anatomists of his time, making a number of discoveries about the makeup of the organs and the relationships between the heart, lungs, and brain.

Bichat was important in his own time — when he died, Napoleon was notified. The physician who told the emperor of Bichat’s death said that “no one has done in the same time so much and so well.” In the decades after he died, Bichat’s star grew brighter; his name was put on the Eiffel Tower as one of France’s 72 greatest scientists. Now, Bichat is…