Page:The American Cyclopædia (1879) Volume X.djvu/851

 MAGENDIE procedure for the resection of the lower jaw. But lie soon devoted himself to the practical study of physiology, and published from 1809 to 1816 a considerable number of memoirs. He was appointed physician to the H6tel- Dieu, became a member of the academy of sciences, and in 1831 was appointed professor of medicine in the college de France. It was in this post, which he held for the remainder of his life, that Magendie developed the re- markable talent which distinguished him as a physiological investigator, and exerted so pow- erful an influence upon physiology and medi- cine in general, that he may almost be said to have inaugurated and established a new epoch in medical science. Before his time experi- menters had been rare, and experiment had been employed, as a rule, in a subordinate manner, and was often regarded as secondary in value to systematic views and the supposed laws of vitality. Magendie, however, insisted that experimentation was the only source of knowledge, and that the brilliant results of scientific generalization were nothing more than empty names, entirely destitute of value. Secondly, he abandoned the consideration of the so-called " vital properties " of the living tissues, introduced by Bichat, which had then become refined and multiplied to an excessive degree, and directed his investigations to the phenomena of a physical and chemical nature manifested by the animal organism, and which could be distinctly perceived and appreciated by the experimenter. In the third place, he experimented constantly upon living animals, for the reason that, the visible phenomena of the living body being the objects of his inves- tigation, this was the only method by which he could hope to learn their real nature. He accordingly had an aversion for systematic sci- entific doctrines, and considered them as serv- ing only to mislead the mind, and to substitute an intellectual uncertainty for the simple re- sults of direct experimentation. He therefore made the chair of medicine in the college de France a chair of experimental physiology, without attempting to construct or teach any complete system of physiological doctrine, un- less it were that of a rigid and exclusive de- pendence upon the direct results of experi- ment. In 1822 he demonstrated the two dif- ferent properties and functions of the ante- rior and posterior roots of the spinal nerves. In the previous year he founded the Journal de Physiologic experimental et pathologique, which he continued to publish for ten years, and to which many of his valuable memoirs were communicated. His most important works are : Memoir e sur le vomissement (Paris, 1813) ; Me-, moire sur Vusage de Vepiglotte dans la deglu- tition (1813) ; Memoir e sur les proprietes nu- tritives des substances qui ne contiennent pas d? azote (1816); Precis elementaire de physio- logic (1816-'17); Memoire sur les organes de V absorption chez les mammiferes {Journal de Physiologic, 1821) ; Experiences sur lesfonctions MAGENTA 845 des racines des nerfs rachidiens (ibid., 1822) ; Memoire sur quelques documents recents rela- tifs aux fonctions du systeme nerveux (1823); Anatomic des systemes nerveux des animaux a vertebras (1825); Memoire physiologique sur le cerveau (1828) ; Memoire sur le mecanisme de I absorption chez les animaux a sang rouge et chaud (Journal de Physiologic, 1828) ; Lecons sur les phenomenes physiques de la me (4 vols., 1836-'42) ; Lecons sur lesfonctions et les mala- dies du systeme nerveux (2 vols., 1839) ; and Recherches physiologiques et cliniques sur le liquide cephalo-rachidien (1842). MAGENTi, a town of Lombardy, Italy, about 5 m. from the E. (left) bank of the Ticino and 15 m. W. of Milan, with which city it communi- cates by railway and canal ; pop. about 5,000. It is the first stage on the road from Novara to Milan, being nearly equidistant from the two places. On June 4, 1859, a great battle was fought here between the allied French and Sardinians, under the emperor Napoleon III. and King Victor Emanuel, and the Austrians commanded by Count Gyulai. The French suddenly crossed the Po at Casale (May 31), and, while the Sardinians menaced Mortara, moved toward the north, and threw three bridges across the Ticino at Turbigo, about 8 m. above Magenta. The Austrians thereupon withdrew across the river into the Lombard territory. On June 4 MacMahon's corps, fol- lowed by a division of the imperial guard and one of the Sardinian army, having crossed at Turbigo on the preceding day, marched along the left bank toward Magenta, while the empe- ror in person advanced with the grenadier divi- sion of the imperial guard to occupy the bridge of Buffalora, leaving orders for Oanrobert to follow. The grenadiers began the contest at noon, and after two hours' fighting took pos- session of the heights on the canal, in the face of an Austrian force of 125,000. The bridge was seven times taken and lost, but the arri- val of Canrobert turned the scale in favor of the French. In the mean time MacMahon's advance from Turbigo had been several times checked by the Austrians, who on evacuating Buffalora concentrated the principal part of their force between him and Magenta. The French 45th regiment of the line made a suc- cessful attack Upon a farm house defended by two Hungarian regiments, and Gen. Auger planted a battery of 40 guns on the railway, from which he poured a tremendous fire upon the Austrians in flank. On reaching the town of Magenta, MacMahon found it occupied by 7,000 of the enemy under Clam-Gallas, and the second army corps under Prince Liechtenstein. The combat here was terrible, as both sides felt Magenta to be the key of the position. The French took it house by house. At 8 P. M. Gyulai ordered a general retreat, leaving four guns in possession of the French. His official report gave his own loss at 9,713 killed, wounded, and missing, and that of the enemy at 6,000 or 7,000 killed and wounded. The