"Sensibility and contractability are the fundamental qualities of living matter and of the life of our tissues.

Thus Bichat substituted for vital forces 'vital properties,' that is to say, a series of vital forces inherent in the different tissues."(11) His "Anatomic Generale," published in 1802, gave an extraordinary stimulus to the study of the finer processes of disease, and his famous "Recherches sur la Vie et sur la Mort" (1800) dealt a death-blow to old iatromechanical and iatrochemical views.

His celebrated definition may be quoted: "La vie est l'ensemble des proprietes vitales qui resistent aux proprietes physiques, ou bien la vie est l'ensemble des fonctions qui resistent a la mort." (Life is the sum of the vital properties that withstand the physical properties, or, life is the sum of the functions that withstand death.) Bichat is another pathetic figure in medical history.

His meteoric career ended in his thirty-first year: he died a victim of a post-mortem wound infection.

At his death, Corvisart wrote Napoleon: "Bichat has just died at the age of thirty.