BERNARD, MM. CH. & HUETTE, CH; VAN BUREN, W. H. & ISAACS, C. E. (eds.); LEVEILLE, M. J. (illus.)
Claude Bernard (1813-78) was one of the outstanding medical researchers of the 19th century, the Emperor Louis Napoleon himself organizing two large laboratory spaces for him at the Paris Natural History Museum. Bernard was also a Chevalier de la Legion d'Honneur when only 36 and eventually elected to the Academie Francaise. Upon his death in 1878 he was accorded a public state funeral, an honour which had never before been bestowed by France on a scientist. His most important idea was "homeostasis," a self-regulating process by which an organism tends to maintain stability while adjusting to conditions that are best for its survival. In his best known work, "An Introduction to the Study of Experimental Medicine" (1865) he laid out the fundamental principles of research: observation; a hypothesis; reproducible results; a counterproof experiment; an absence of preconception; the presence of an open mind. Dr. F. A. Holman, whose signature appears on a front endpaper, graduated from Harvard in 1846 and practised in California for over 30 years, most of them in San Fancisco. He died there March 1884.
