EXERCISE & DIABETES. BERNARD, Claude. Sur une nouvelle fonction du foie chez l'homme et les animaux. (Séance du Lundi 21 Octobre 1850). In: Compte Rendu. Tome 31, no. 17, 1850, pp. 571-574. 4to., 275 x 220 mm, bound in late nineteenth-century French red half morocco over marbled boards. Paris: Compte Rendu, 1850.



First Appearance of this landmark of biochemistry, offering a revolutionary view on contemporary understanding of diabetes, hypoglycemia, insulin production, and glycogen depletion from endurance exercise. Glycogen, the analogue for starch, is a molecule that serves as the secondary long-term energy storage in the human body and is produced primarily by the liver and in muscles. The importance of Bernard's investigations would be difficult to over-emphasize.

Claude Bernard (1813-1878) has been called by 'historian of science I. Bernard Cohen of Harvard University "one of the greatest of all men of science." Among many other accomplishments, he was one of the first to suggest the use of "blind experiments" to ensure the objectivity of scientific observations.'

Bernard's scientific treatise was written by one of the greatest physiologists of the 19th century and the founder of experimental medicine. He was Bernard's treatise contains the first announcement of the theory of the glycogenic function of the liver. This four-page report was one of a half dozen which Bernard printed on the subject between 1843 and 1854. He later expanded it into a 92-page dissertation for which he received his doctorate from the Sorbonne in 1853. His research revealed that the liver builds up certain complex substances, including glycogen, from simple nutrients which are brought to the liver via the blood and which are themselves the products of digestion. Extremely rare first appearance of his discoveries.

Dibner, Heralds of Science, no. 131. Horblitt, Grolier Science 100, no. 11a (for the dissertation of 1853). DSB II 24-34.