Lucius Calpurnius Bibulus, who were assassinated in Egypt by the soldiers of Gabinius in the year 50 b.c. Their first names have not been recorded.
BIBULUS, D. Calpurnius, an eminent Roman citizen, lived in the first half of the first century before the christian era. In the year 65 he held the office of edile, in 62 that of prætor, and in 59 that of consul.
BIBULUS, L. Calpurnius, youngest son of Lucius Calpurnius Bibulus, and brother of the two preceding, born about 31 b.c. In 45 he left Rome, where he had hitherto resided under the protection of Brutus, who had married his mother, Porcia, and went to Athens to pursue his studies. After the death of Cæsar in 44, he followed the fortunes of his father-in-law, and took part in the battle of Philippi in 42. After the death of Brutus, Bibulus became reconciled to Antony, who committed to him the command of a fleet, and employed him in negotiations with Augustus. He was afterwards appointed governor of Syria, where he died. He wrote a biography of Brutus, from which Plutarch has chiefly drawn the materials of his life.—G. M.
BIBULUS, Marcus Calpurnius, a Roman consul, lived in the first century before the christian era. In 59 he was raised to the consular dignity, with Julius Cæsar as his colleague, and held at the same time the government of Syria. In the civil war which afterwards broke out between Cæsar and Pompey, Bibulus took part with the latter, and had the chief command of his naval forces.—G. M.
BICCI, Lorenzo di, born at Florence in 1400, and studied under Spinello, a vehement, grand, but too sketchy painter, who helped to adorn the Pisan Campo Santo, and who died from fright at a dream in which the devil appeared to him. Bicci was the last inheritor of the Giotto spirit. Simple and mild in expression, he is occasionally somewhat like his contemporary the monk of Fiesole. One picture of his on wood and several frescos are preserved. He died in 1460.—W. T.
BICCIUS, Zacharie, a German poet and Greek scholar, lived in the first part of the seventeenth century; author of a treatise "On Greek Accents."
BICHAT, Marie François Xavier, an eminent French anatomist and physiologist, was born November 11, 1771, at Poissey, department de l'Ain. He commenced his professional studies under his father, Jean Baptiste Bichat, who was himself a physician; and was sent by him to pursue them at Lyons, under the celebrated Petit, who bestowed on him particular attention. The master and pupil being separated by the revolutionary troubles in 1793, young Bichat proceeded to Paris, where, without a single acquaintance or introduction, he entered the school of Dessault, who then held the highest rank as a surgeon. His talents having become known to his teacher through an accidental circumstance which he ably turned to account, he was invited by Dessault to take up his abode with him, and was treated by him as his adopted son and destined successor. This intimacy was early severed, however, by Dessault's sudden death in 1795, and Bichat then devoted himself with filial zeal to preparing for publication the writings of his master, whose widow and son continued to be the objects of his particular regard. Whilst thus occupied he opened a school for teaching anatomy, physiology, and surgery, and commenced that series of original researches in the first two of these subjects, by which he speedily acquired, not merely a high contemporary reputation, but lasting renown. These researches, laboriously prosecuted in the dissecting-room, the physiological laboratory, and the hospital, were frequently interrupted by the failure of his health; but even when he was confined to his sick chamber, his mind was actively occupied in maturing and systematizing his views, and in thus preparing for the publication of his great works; and he could not be prevented from returning to his laborious and trying occupations when quite unfit for engaging in them. It was in his "Traité des Membranes," in 1800, that he first laid that broad foundation for the science of general anatomy or histology which, in the succeeding year, he raised by the publication of his "Anatomie Générale appliquée à la Physiologie et à la Médecine,"—a fabric whose completeness must appear extraordinary to every one who looks at it as the work performed within no more than five or six years by a single man, a large part of whose time and strength were absorbed by the laborious duties of a public teacher. In the year 1800 he also published an important work entitled "Recherches Physiologiques sur la Vie et la Mort." And at the time of his death, which occurred July 22, 1802, from fever that seems to have originated in exposure to putrescent emanations, of which his want of bodily vigour rendered him peculiarly susceptible, he was engaged on a large and complete treatise on Descriptive Anatomy, which was afterwards finished by his pupils.—Although the importance of studying the elementary tissues of the animal body, and their respective properties, had been recognized by more than one preceding anatomist, yet there was in their observations, as has been well remarked by Mr. Buckle, "that want of harmony and that general incompleteness always characteristic of the labours of men who do not rise to a commanding view of the subject with which they deal." This "commanding view" was unquestionably first taken by Bichat. He saw that in order to gain any clear idea of the actions of the living body, it was necessary to become acquainted with the structure and properties not merely of its organs, but of the tissues of which these organs are made up; thus decomposing, as it were, the complex fabric into its simplest elements, and isolating each for separate examination. He made use of all the means which observation and experiment were at that time able to furnish for the attainment of the fullest knowledge of the characters of every tissue; and had he not been prevented, on the one hand, by the imperfection of the microscope of that day, from making advantageous use of this instrument in the investigation of minute structures, and been kept back on the other by the want of the means of conducting organic analysis, from determining the true composition of the substances under examination, there can be little doubt that he would have anticipated the discoveries which have revolutionized histology, or the science of the tissues, within our own time. On the basis of general anatomy, Bichat built up the framework of a scheme of physiology and pathology which his followers in every school have laboured to complete. He looked not only at the structure, but at the properties of the elementary tissues; and not merely at their properties in the state of health, but at their altered conditions in disease. He saw that many of these properties were peculiar to living tissues, and hence distinguished them as vital; and he regarded life in the aggregate as the sum of all the actions which are performed by the separate, and to a certain extent independent, exercise of these properties. Thus he completed the overthrow of the iatro-mathematical school, which had fixed its attention exclusively on the physical phenomena of the living body; whilst he also exposed the fallacy of the then prevalent doctrine of Stahl, that there is in every living body an archæus or "vital principle," which governs and directs all its actions. As health depends upon the due working of all the elementary parts of the organism, so does disease result from the perversion of the vital properties of some of these; and it is the object of therapeutics to correct such perversions, by the application of remedies specially fitted to bring back the vital forces to the natural type from which they had departed. There can be little doubt that in dwelling so constantly on the vital properties of the primary tissues, Bichat took too little account of their physical and chemical actions; and that in fixing the attention too exclusively on the properties of the solids, he somewhat underrated those of the fluids. Still he is by no means chargeable with the exclusive solidism of his successors in the French school of pathology; and it can scarcely be doubted that he would have recognized the full value of those considerations which have led of late to the revival, in a modified form, of the "humoral pathology," which had sunk under the influence of their teachings into undeserved disrepute. Among many other important doctrines propounded for the first time in his work, "Sur la Vie et la Mort," is that classification of the functions into organic and animal, which is now universally adopted by physiologists, and which has greatly aided in that systematic arrangement of the phenomena of life which lies at the basis of all sound generalization of them. Altogether it may be truly said, that Bichat left an impress upon the science of life, the depth of which can scarcely be overrated; and this not so much by the facts which he collected and generalized, as by the method of inquiry which he developed, and by the systematic form which he gave to the study of general anatomy in its relations both to physiology and to pathology.—W. B. C.
BICHENO, James Ebenezer, was born at Newbury, in Berkshire, where his father was a Baptist clergyman. He seems to have devoted his attention at first to matters connected with the philosophy of legislation, the administration of the poor
