Francis Glisson (redirected from Glisson)

Glisson, Francis 

Born 1597, in Rampisham, Dorsetshire; died Oct. 16, 1677, in London. English physician, anatomist, and physiologist.

Glisson became a professor at Cambridge University in 1636. He was the first to describe rickets (1650) and to study the structure of the liver (1654). The membrane covering the liver is named after him (Glisson’s capsule). He introduced the concept of irritability; he believed that all parts of the body are constructed of fibers capable of perceiving external stimuli and responding to them with various characteristic movements (contraction, secretion, and so on). Glisson rejected the theory of the French scientist R. Descartes of nerve “fluids,” which prevailed at that time, experimentally proving its untenability by measuring the volume of a muscle before and after contraction (by means of immersing it in a vessel of water). Glisson believed that matter is not inert but capable of independent movement and sensitivity.

WORKS

Tractatus de natura substantiae energetica seu de vita naturae, ejusque tribus facultatibus naturalibus. London, 1672.
Tractatus de ventrículo et intestinis. London, 1677.