BICHAT BICKANEER 623 to the Invalicles, and Bicetre became a hospital for the poor and an asylum for vagrants. Un- der Louis XVI. a part of it was set aside for the treatment of venereal diseases, the patients invariably receiving a flogging as the first step in the cure. During the massacres of September, 1792, the inmates defended themselves despe- rately against the terrorists, and a horrible slaughter ensued. The establishment now has departments for the following classes : 1, old ser- vants of the hospital, able-bodied old men, and blind lads ; 2, the sick generally ; 3, old men not quite disabled, and men over 70 years of age ; 4, blind old men, and those suffering under grave diseases ; 5, incurable invalids, lunatics, idiots, and epileptics. About one half of the inmates are paupers ; the majority of the rest are lunatics ; the whole number of inmates is from 3,000 to 4,000, including about 600 em- ployees with their families. Women are not received, and children are taken only when they are insane or epileptic ; of these there are about 100. The annual expenses exceed 1,300,000 francs. The buildings include a gym- nasium, library, church, and school, and work- shops in which those who are able to labor are employed in woollen spinning, glass polishing, &c. About 200 lunatics are occupied in agri- cultural labor on a farm near the hospital. ItlCIIAT, Marie Francois Xavier, a French anat- omist and physiologist, born at Thoirette-en- Bresse, department of the Ain, Nov. 11, 1771, died in Paris, July 22, 1802. He was a student of the Jesuit seminary of St. Iren6o at Lyons until the revolution in 1789, when he returned home and began the study of anatomy under his father, a physician at Poncin, and afterward attended lectures at the hospital of Lyons. Driven from Lyons again by the revolution, he went in 1793 to Paris to study surgery under Desault at the H&tel Dieu, who, pleased with his zeal and ability, invited him to reside in his own house, subsequently adopted him as his son, and destined him to be his successor. After the death of Desault (1795) Bichat arranged and published the works of his master, and opened a school of anatomy, physiology, and surgery. He also undertook a series of experi- ments on the chemical, physical, physiological, and vital properties of the different tissues of the animal economy. During a severe attack of illness, caused by overwork, he passed the time in maturing his views of anatomy and physiology, and sketched the plan of the works in which these views were afterward devel- oped. As soon as he had partially recovered, he recommenced his labors. In spite of in- creasing weakness, he continued to pass several hours a day in a damp cellar, macerating ani- mal tissues and making various experiments to ascertain the properties of each particular kind of structure in the organs of the body. In a short time he was seized with typhoid fever, which proved fatal in the course of 14 days. Although he had lived less than 31 years, he had done enough already to immortalize his 92 VOL. ii. 40 name. He was the first who undertook a sys- tematic analysis to reduce the complex struc- tures of the body to their elementary tissues, and to ascertain the peculiar properties, chem- j ical, physical, and vital, which characterize each simple tissue. The idea of such a work had been suggested by partial analyses before, but his Anatomie generate formed a new era in the development of that branch of science. The work abounds with minute and laborious research, extensive and elaborate experiment, conducted with intuitive insight and practical skill ; and though a monument of fame, it was completed and published in a year. It was recognized at once and universally as the work of a great genius. Soon after its publication he commenced his Anatomie descriptive, conceived on a new plan ; this was left unfinished, but was completed according to his directions by his friends and disciples. There was little sys- tematic order in the study of anatomy and physiology before this time. Dissections were made chiefly with a view to the practical art of surgery alone, and not with any compre- hensive view of general analysis. He first laid stress on the general distinction between con- scious and unconscious life in the body, and the correspondingly incessant action of one set of organs, sleeping or waking, contrasted with the interrupted action of another set of or- gans, which are active in the waking state and passive during sleep. He divided the organ- ism, therefore, into two distinct mechanisms which he called the organic and relational, or the vegetative and the animal. These distinc- tions are admitted at the present day, although the vegetative or the organic mechanism is more commonly subdivided into the nutritive and the reproductive systems. He fell into some errors by generalizing too extensively, without M sufficient knowledge of minor facts, and these errors have deterred his followers from pursu- ing the same course. His Becherches sur la lie et la mart contains the germs of a revolution in the study of anatomy and physiology, but its defective definitions and manifest errors have caused them to be overlooked. The same idea runs through all his works, and that is the distinction between conscious and uncon- scious bodily life and motion. BICHE DE DUB. See SEA CUCUMBER. BICKAJVEER, or Beykaneer. I. A native state of N". W. Hindostan, in Rajpootana, be- tween lat. 27 30' and 29 55' N. and Ion. 72 30' and 75 40' E. ; area, 17,676 sq. m. ; pop. about 540,000. Its length from E. to W. is 200 m., breadth about 160 m. The surface is flat, sandy, and arid, and the only products are various kinds of pulse, raised by irrigation. The only exports are horses and cattle of an inferior kind. The climate presents extraor- dinary extremes of temperature according as the sun is above or below the horizon. The Rajpoots are the predominant race, but the majority of the population are Jants. Bicka- neer was admitted under British protection in
