time, resulting from an imperfect knowledge of the laws of life, and the darkness which enveloped those of disease. The lamp of Chemistry was not yet lighted, and the absurd crudities still prevailing of the humoral pathology inspired false notions of the doctrine of inflammation, and rendered all theoretical explanation of its phenomena mystical and unprofitable.
Jean Louis Petit, a native of Paris, the second renovator of surgery in France, was initiated in anatomy by the celebrated De Littre, his father’s friend and inmate, while yet a boy. So indefatigable was his ardour in the pursuit of professional knowledge, that he was often found by Mareschal the surgeon-major, asleep on the steps of La Charité, at the dawn of day, while awaiting the opening of the doors.
Petit followed the army hospitals in Louis XIVth’s Flemish campaigns, towards the close of the seventeenth century, demonstrating anatomy during successive seasons at Lisle, Mons, and Cambray. He was admitted master in surgery at Paris in the year 1700. There he delivered public courses on anatomy and the operations of surgery, and eventually became Provost of the College. He was specially appointed by Louis XV. Director of the Royal Academy of Surgery, on its establishment in 1731. Petit was uneducated; so much so, that at the age of fifty he commenced the study of the Latin language. He died in
