BROWN-SQUARD, CHARLES-DOUARD

born April 8, 1817, Port Louis, Mauritius died April 1, 1894, Paris, France French physiologist and neurologist, a pioneer endocrinologist and neurophysiologist who was among the first to work out the physiology of the spinal cord. After graduating in medicine from the University of Paris in 1846, Brown-Squard taught at Harvard University (186468) and practiced medicine briefly in New York. He succeeded Claude Bernard in 1878 as professor of experimental medicine in the Collge de France. In 1849 Brown-Squard discovered that the sensorybut not the motorfibres in the spinal cord are crossed, so that a cut halfway through the cord from one side produces paralysis in the same side of the body but anesthesia in the side opposite to the cut. In 1856 he discovered that the adrenal gland is essential for life, and he later showed that internal secretions (i.e., hormones) serve the body's cells as a second means of communication with each other (the first being the nervous system). It was Brown-Squard's misfortune, in old age, to bring upon himself the ridicule of scientists by reporting (1889) that he had rejuvenated himself by subcutaneous injections of a fluid prepared from the testicles of freshly killed guinea pigs and dogs. This sensational claim did, however, stimulate subsequent research on the sex hormones.