GLISSON, FRANCIS, an English physician, born in 1597, at Rampisham, in the county of Dorset, was educated at Cambridge, and, during forty years, occupied the chair of medicine in that university. In 1634, he was admitted into the college of physicians in London, of which he afterwards became president; and, in 1639, this body appointed him professor of anatomy. He filled this situation with much credit at the commencement of the civil war, when he took refuge in Colchester; but after the surren-
der of that city to the parliamentary forces, he went to London, and became a member of that association of learned men which was afterwards transformed into the Royal Society. In 1650, he published his treatise De Rachitide, seu morbo puerili, a malady then new in England, where it had only appeared about thirty years before. Glisson was assisted in the composition of this treatise by Doctors Bate and Regemortes. In 1654, appeared his Anatomia Hepatis, in 8vo, with an appendix concerning the lymphatic ducts, then recently discovered; in 1672, the Tractatus de natura substantiae energetica, seu de vita Natura ejusque tribus primis facultatibus; and in 1677, the year of his death, the book De Ventriculo et Intestinis, in 4to, the first work containing conjectures as to the nature of the simple fibre, and an exposition of the innate principle of irritability, as it is denominated by our author. Glisson was also the first who attributed the contraction of the heart, and of the other muscles, to the action of a stimulus on their irritable principle. He likewise treats largely and judiciously of the peristaltic and antiperistaltic motion. The greater part of his works have often been reprinted in different countries. They contain new methods and discoveries, amongst others that of the capsule of the vena portae, at least he had the merit of being the first to examine and describe it with accuracy. He was also the author of a treatise De Lymphaductis nuper repertis, Amsterdam, 1659, which, and his book entitled Anatomica prolegomena et Anatomia Hepatis, are considered as the best of his works. Boerhaave regarded him as the most exact of all the anatomists; and Haller, speaking of one of his works, describes it as an excellent book, "like all those written by the same author." Glisson's views on physiology are now held in little estimation. (A.)