François Magendie

François Magendie (1783 to 1855) was a French physiologist regarded as a pioneer of experimental physiology. He held the Chair of Medicine at the College of France from 1830 until his death, and Claude Bernard, who had worked as his assistant, succeeded him. His best known contribution was his work on the nervous system, where his experiments confirmed the difference between sensory and motor nerves in the spinal cord, the finding known as the Bell-Magendie law. That claim set off a long priority quarrel with the Scottish surgeon Charles Bell. Magendie also gave his name to the foramen of Magendie and published a formulary of new remedies. He was a notorious vivisector whose public dissections shocked many contemporaries and drew criticism in Britain and France, including from Charles Darwin and Thomas Henry Huxley.