BERNARD, CLAUDE. — French priest known as the poor priest, born in Dijon, to a distinguished magistrate, on 26 December 1588, died in Paris on 23 March 1641. Educated by the Jesuits at Dôle, he subsequently studied law at Toulouse. He then led a somewhat dissipated life, even after embracing the ecclesiastical state. Converted to fervor under the guidance of Fr. COINDRE, ANDRÉ (v.), he placed himself under the direction of the Jesuit Fr. Marnat. Having distributed an inheritance of 400,000 lire to the poor, he imposed upon himself a life of solitude and mortification and devoted himself to assisting the poor.
His fifteen-year apostolate in the hospitals and prisons of Paris aroused the admiration of Anne of Austria, Richelieu, and the entire society of the time. His extremely humble and popular sermons attracted great crowds; Fr. de St-Jure sent his novices to learn from the “holy preacher,” as he called him. Memorare (v.) in more than 200,000 copies, thereby inspiring confidence in the Most Blessed Virgin, to whom he was deeply devoted, and brought about very many conversions. In 1639 he founded the “Seminary of the Thirty-Three” (for 33 students), preceding the initiatives of St. Vincent de Paul, Olier, and Bourdoise. This institution lasted until 1789.
In the field of physiology, B. is one of the principal figures of the past century and left his name associated not only with numerous fundamental discoveries (the glycogenic function of the liver, the vasomotor action of the nervous system on the walls of the arteries, the digestive action of pancreatic juice, the physiology of the chorda tympani and the spinal nerve, the origin of animal heat, the pharmacological activity of anaesthetics and curare, and the interdependence of the functions of the organs), but also with the introduction of an experimental method and a theoretical approach that led to decisive advances in the science of life.
B. essentially adhered to determinism, while expressly acknowledging the inadequacy of physics and chemistry to provide an adequate explanation of life (cf. De la physiologie générale, 306, 307, 321). Another aspect of his thought emerges from the following words spoken on the occasion of his admission to the Academy: «It would be an error to believe that the scientist, in following the precepts of the experimental method, must reject every a priori conception and impose silence on his feeling so as to consult only the results of experience... His feeling, even unbeknownst to him, obeys the innate need that irresistibly makes us return to the origin of things, but his gaze remains directed toward nature, because our idea becomes precise and luminous only by returning to the hearth of knowledge within us after having been reflected in the external world, just as a ray of light can illuminate us only by being reflected from the objects surrounding us (La science expérimentale).
Among B.’s principal works are: Leçons sur les propriétés des tissus vivants (1863); De la physiologie générale (1872); Leçons sur les phénomènes de la vie communs aux animaux et aux végétaux (1877–79); Leçons de pathologie expérimentale (1880). Also to be recalled, for their wide-ranging influence on the formation of modern scientific thought, are: Introduction à l'étude de la médecine expérimentale (1865) and La science expérimentale (1878). All were printed in Paris; the Pensées, Notes détachées, edited by L. Delhomme, there in 1937; Philosophie, edited by J. Chevalier, there in 1938.