MAGENDIE, François, a celebrated French physician and physiologist, born at Bordeaux in 1783. He commenced his medical studies at an early age, and acquired great skill as an anatomist; but it was to the study of physiology that he particularly devoted himself. Bichat had just given a new interest to the study of the phenomena of life, and Le-Gallois was then occupied with his researches into the functions of the nervous system; Magendie followed in their steps. In 1809, in a memoir read to the Institute, he demonstrated that absorption was effected by the veins, and not by the lymphatics. He also proved by direct experiment—replacing the stomach of a live dog by the bladder of a pig—how inactive the stomach is in the act of vomiting. His passion for performing experiments upon living animals was intense, and from 1816 he devoted himself to experimental physiology. His reputation and the novelty of his experiments attracted great numbers of students to his lectures; and in a visit he paid to England he repeated his experiments upon living animals before many of the chief physiologists of this country. A great outcry, however, was raised against the cruelty of these exhibitions; and though Magendie was defended by the eloquence of Sir James Mackintosh, public feeling continued to be strongly manifested against the barbarity attending such experiments. In 1830 Magendie was elected physician to the Hotel Dieu; and in the same year was appointed professor of medicine at the College of France. In 1848 he was named president of the French Board of Health, and in 1851 had the cross of commander of the legion of honour conferred upon him. Attacked in 1855 by a severe illness, he calmly studied the phenomena announcing the approach of death—"You see me here," he said to a friend who visited him on his deathbed, "completing my experiments!" He died in October of that year. Magendie has a great name in physiology, and his writings embrace a multitude of subjects. He confirmed by direct experiment the accuracy of Sir Charles Bell's theory of the double nature and composition of nerves. He studied the subject of poisons, and advocated the use of several as medicines, prussic acid, nux vomica, &c. His largest works are "Precis elementaire de Physiologic," "Leçons sur les phenoménes physiques de la vie;" "Leçons sur les fonctions et les maladies du systéme nerveux," &c.—W. B—d.
MAGINN, William, LL.D., author and journalist, was born in 1794 at Cork, where his father kept a successful academy. A precocious scholar, at the age of ten he entered Trinity college, Dublin, where he distinguished himself, afterwards receiving from his alma mater the degree of LL.D. On leaving college he assisted his father, whom he subsequently succeeded in the management of the school. Almost from its commencement he contributed to Blackwood's Magazine prose and verse, satirical, fanciful, and scholarly. In 1823 he married, surrendered his school, and went to London to live by literature. A staunch tory, he was during its brief existence Paris correspondent of the Representative, the daily paper started by the late John Murray in 1825; afterwards he contributed to Theodore Hook's John Bull, and on the establishment of the Standard in 1827, was appointed one of its editors. His fame, however, dates from 1830, when he helped to found Fraser's Magazine, to which he was the principal contributor for years. Gay, witty, sometimes reckless, satire, specially directed against liberal politicians and authors, was his staple; though now and then, in such prose and verse as the "Shakspeare papers" and the spirited "Homeric Ballads" (both collected and republished since his death), he achieved success in higher departments. During his later years his circumstances were much embarrassed, and an imprisonment in the Fleet in 1842 may be said to have killed him. He owed nothing to the patronage of the political party whose battle he had fought; but on his deathbed the late Sir Robert Peel came to his aid, with a munificence of which Maginn himself was left in ignorance. He died at Walton-on-Thames in August, 1842. Socially, Maginn seems to have exerted a singular fascination. His writings have been collected and republished in America, and one of his friends has contributed an interesting sketch of him to the Dublin University Magazine for January, 1844.—F. E.
MAGLIABECCHI, Antonio, a prodigy of memory and of the knowledge of books, born in Florence, 28th October, 1633; died in the convent of Santa Maria Novella in that city, in June, 1714, after six months' illness. His parents are generally understood to have been respectable persons, without fortune; though one account represents them as of the lowest class, and Magliabecchi as having been brought up without even knowing how to read. He was in a jeweller's shop up to 1673, when he abandoned the trade, and devoted himself solely to the study of literature, which had long absorbed his mind. The grand duke, Cosmo III., appointed him keeper of his library—a post which Magliabecchi retained till his death. His fame and literary influence were European. Of his memory, among many anecdotes, it is related that, after reading a MS. which had been lent him, he wrote it all out without missing a word; and that, from his study of catalogues, he was able to inform the grand duke off hand that the sole extant copy of a particular book was in the sultan's library in Constantinople, the seventh volume on the second shelf at the right hand in entering. His habits were those of a literary ascetic and ogre; squalid in person, passing the whole night in his study, generally without leaving his chair or his clothes; dining on three hard eggs and a draught of water; and never quitting his house except in the morning to walk to the library in the palace. He is said never to have gone further from Florence than to the neighbouring town of Prato on one occasion, to inspect a MS. His unparalleled stores of knowledge were always at the service of inquirers; yet the self-opinion which he justly entertained involved him in many quarrels with the men of letters of his own city. In one instance a gross charge was made against his morals; but a mass of the highest testimony was adduced in disproof, and the accusation miscarried. His only publications were a few letters, a short catalogue of Oriental MSS. in the Laurentian library, and some editions of authors of the lower ages. He bequeathed his own library of thirty thousand printed and MS. volumes to the public, with a handsome endowment: it has since been much augmented, and retains his name.—W. M. R.
MAGNENTIUS, Flavius Popilius, Emperor of the West (350-353), was of barbarian extraction, and served with distinction as a soldier under Constantine the Great. Under his son and successor Constans, Magnentius held an important military office in Gaul; but a conspiracy was formed to dethrone Constans and seat Magnentius in his place. On 18th January, 350, Magnentius was proclaimed emperor at Autun in Gaul. Constans took to flight, but was overtaken and killed at Helena, now Elne, in the Pyrenees. Besides Gaul—Italy, Sicily, Africa, Spain, and Britain submitted to the authority of the usurper, and he advanced into Pannonia to confront his rival Constantius, the emperor of the East. The latter offered to divide the empire, but Magnentius refused all peaceful arbitrament. A great battle was fought, September 28, 351, at Mursa, now Essek, in Hungary, in which Magnentius was completely defeated and forced to fly into Italy. The troops of Italy soon after declared against him, and he was finally driven back into Gaul. He in vain attempted to make terms with Constantius, who now in his turn refused all overtures. Africa and Spain also abandoned him. In 353 the armies of Constantius forced the passes of the Alps, and Magnentius sustained a final defeat at Mons Seleucus in Dauphinè. On 10th August he committed suicide; his family perished along with him, and the rebellion was punished with relentless severity by Constantius. Magnentius was a man of great courage and ability, but in the highest degree cruel, revengeful, and implacable.—G.
MAGNOL, Pierre, a French botanist, was born at Montpellier on the 8th June, 1638, and died in the same town on 21st May, 1715. He was the son of an apothecary, and early showed a desire to prosecute the study of botany. He attended medical classes, and took the degree of doctor of medicine in 1659. He at first declared himself a protestant, but he afterwards abjured the reformed faith. He assisted the professor of botany at Montpellier in the demonstration of plants, and he made many excursions in Languedoc, as well as to the Alps and the Pyrenees. He ultimately became physician to Louis XIV.; and in 1694 was nominated professor of medicine at Montpellier. In 1697 he was appointed director of the botanic garden. He visited Paris in 1705, having been called to replace Tournefort in the Academy of Sciences. Retiring afterwards to Montpellier, he devoted his whole attention to the botanic garden of that place. The genus Magnolia has been named after him by Plumier. Among his writings are the following—"Botanicum Monspeliense," an account of the plants growing near Montpellier; "Prodromus historiæ generalis plantarum;" "Hortus regius Monspeliensis;" "Novus character plantarum."—His son, Antoine, succeeded him. He was born in 1676 at Montpellier,
