Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 9.djvu/123

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SKETCH OF DR. AUSTIN FLINT, Jr.
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in which cholesteræmia has been produced in animals by injection of cholesterine into the blood.

In 1867, at the request of the Commissioners of Public Charities and Correction of New York City, Dr. Flint reorganized the dietary system for the institutions under their charge, including Bellevue Hospital, Charity Hospital, Poorhouse, Workhouse, Penitentiary, etc., etc., making diet-tables for more than 10,000 persons. In 1871 he made observations upon Weston, the pedestrian, analyzing his food and secretions for fifteen days before, during, and after one of his great walking-exploits. These inquiries help to decide some important physiological questions.

In 1869 Dr. Flint published an elaborate review of the history of the discovery of the motor and sensory properties of the roots of the spinal nerves, in which the discovery was ascribed to Magendie instead of to Sir Charles Bell, who has generally been regarded as its author. This review, originally published in the Journal of Psychological Medicine, New York, in 1868, was translated into French, and published in Robin's Journal de l'anatomie. It produced such an impression that it was soon followed by the publication, in the English Journal of Anatomy, of the original paper of Charles Bell, "Idea of a New Anatomy of the Brain," which was privately printed (not published) in 1811. The original manuscript was furnished to the Journal of Anatomy by the widow of Sir Charles Bell. It was upon this paper that the claims of Charles Bell to the discovery were based; and, before its publication in the Journal of Anatomy, it had been entirely inaccessible.

Claude Bernard has been the eminent advocate of the theory that the liver is a sugar-producing organ; but observations upon this subject were discordant, and eminent physiologists contested Bernard's position. In 1869 Dr. Flint published, in the New York Medical Journal, a series of experiments upon the "glycogenic function of the liver," in which he endeavored to harmonize the various conflicting observations, and is considered by most physiologists to have settled the question.

In 1866 he announced the publication of the "Physiology of Man," a work in five volumes, of 500 pages each, and the last volume was issued in 1874. He printed a little work in 1870 on "Chemical Examinations of Urine in Disease," which went through several editions. He contributed the articles on gymnastics and pugilism to the "American Cyclopædia," was appointed Surgeon-General of the State of New York by Governor Tilden in 1874, and has recently published a voluminous "Text-book of Human Physiology." He has also written much for scientific periodicals and popular journals, and has been actively engaged in his duties as a physiological teacher.