CABANIS, PIERRE JEAN GEORGE, a distinguished writer and physician at Paris, was born at Conac in 1757. His
father, Jean Baptiste Cabanis, was a lawyer of eminence, and chief magistrate of a district in the Lower Limousin, highly respected for his great acquirements and integrity, and entitled to the gratitude of his country for the many improvements he has introduced in agriculture and farming. Young Cabanis was sent at ten years of age to the college of Brives; and he afterwards studied at Paris, where he devoted himself to the acquisition of classical knowledge. At first he paid no attention to the lectures of his professors; but afterwards, of his own accord, he resumed those branches of his education in which he had remained deficient, and devoted himself entirely to the cultivation of his mind.
Thus constantly occupied, two years had passed away, when he received the offer of the place of secretary to a Polish nobleman. This offer he embraced without hesitation, and, though only sixteen, committed himself into the hands of strangers, in a distant country, which was represented to him as in a state of barbarism. This was in 1773, the year during which that diet was sitting which was to deliberate upon giving its sanction to the first partition of Poland. The corrupt intrigues and compulsory measures which were practised on that occasion, inspired him with a contempt for mankind; and a degree of misanthropic gloom, which are generally the fruits of a later experience of human depravity. He returned to Paris two years afterwards, when Turgot, the friend of his father, was minister of finance. On being presented to this statesman he was received with kindness, and would soon have been placed in a situation perfectly conformable to his tastes and wishes, had not a court intrigue caused the sudden downfall of the minister.
He now felt the necessity of making up for the time he had lost, and again applied to his studies with his former ardour. He had contracted a friendship with the poet Roucher, who enjoyed some celebrity. This connection rekindled his taste for poetry; and the French Academy having proposed as a prize subject the translation of a passage in the Iliad, he not only ventured to appear as a competitor, but set about translating the entire poem. The two specimens which he sent to the Academy did not obtain any public notice, but they were judged of favourably by several persons of taste. He was soon, however, sensible of the emptiness of these applause; and, urged by his father to choose a useful profession, he at length decided for that of medicine. Dubreuil offered to be his guide in the new and arduous career which he was commencing; and Cabanis continued for six years the pupil of this able master. In 1789 he published Observations sur les Hôpitaux, a work which procured him the appointment of administrator of hospitals at Paris.
His state of health requiring occasional relaxation, he fixed upon Auteuil, in the immediate vicinity of Paris, as his place of residence. He continued his intercourse with Turgot; was on terms of intimacy with Condillac, Thomas, and D'Alembert; and acquired the friendship of Holbach, Franklin, and Jefferson. During the last visit which Voltaire made to Paris, Cabanis was presented to him by Turgot, and read to him part of his translation of the Iliad, which that acute critic, though old, infirm, and fatigued with his journey, listened to with great interest, and bestowed much commendation on the talents of the author. Cabanis had now, however, long ceased to occupy himself with that work; and, even bade a formal adieu to poetry in his Serment d'un Médecin, which appeared in 1789. In the political struggle which now began to engross the general attention, Cabanis espoused with enthusiasm the cause of the revolution, to which he was attached from principle, and
Cabanis. of which the opening prospects were thoroughly congenial to his active and ardent mind.
During the two last years of Mirabeau's life he was intimately connected with that extraordinary man, who had the singular art of pressing into his service the pens of all his literary friends. Cabanis united himself with this disinterested association of labourers, and contributed the Travail sur l'Éducation Publique; a tract which was found among the papers of Mirabeau at his death, and was edited by the real author soon afterwards in 1791. During the illness which terminated his life, Mirabeau confided himself entirely to the professional skill of Cabanis. Of the progress of the malady, and the circumstances attending the death of Mirabeau, Cabanis has drawn up a very detailed narrative, which is not calculated, however, to impress us with any high idea of his skill in the treatment of an acute inflammatory disease.
Condorcet was another distinguished character with whom Cabanis was intimate, and whom he endeavoured, though without success, to save from the destiny in which he afterwards became involved by the calamitous events of the revolution. Shortly after this he married Charlotte Grouchy, sister to Madame Condorcet and to General Grouchy; a union which was a great source of happiness to him during the remainder of his life.
After the subversion of the government of the terrorists, Cabanis, on the establishment of central schools, was named professor of Hygiène in the medical schools of the metropolis. Next year he was chosen member of the National Institute, and was subsequently appointed clinical professor. He was afterwards member of the Council of Five Hundred, and then of the Conservative Senate. The dissolution of the Directory was the result of a motion which he made to that effect. But his political career was not of long continuance. A foe to tyranny in every shape, he was decidedly hostile to the policy of Bonaparte, and constantly rejected every solicitation to accept a place under his government.
For some years before his death, his health became gradually more impaired, and he retired from the laborious duties of his profession, spending the greatest part of his time at the chateau of his father-in-law at Meulan. Here he solaced himself with reading his favourite poets, and even had it in contemplation to resume that translation of the Iliad which had been the first effort of his youthful muse. The rest of his time was devoted to kindness and beneficence, especially towards the poor, who flocked from all parts to consult him on their complaints. Cabanis died May 5, 1808, leaving a widow and a daughter.
Besides the tracts already mentioned, Cabanis was author of Mélanges de Littérature Allemande, ou Choix de Traductions de l'Allemande, &c., Paris, 8vo, 1797; Du Degré de Certitude de la Médecine, 1797 and 1803, containing a republication of his Observations sur les Hôpitaux, and his Journal de la Maladie et de la Mort de Mirabeau l'aîné; together with a short tract on the punishment of the guillotine, in which he combats the opinion of Soemmerring, Gelsuer, and Sue, that sensibility remains for some time after decapitation. This tract had already appeared in the Magasin Encyclopédique, and in the first volume of the Mémoires de la Société Médicale d'Évauline. This new edition also contains his Rapport fait au Conseil des Cinq-cent sur l'Organisation des Écoles de Médecine; and a long dissertation entitled Quelques Principes et quelques Vues sur les Secours Publics. Quelques Considérations sur l'Organisation sociale en général, et particulièrement sur la nouvelle Constitution, 12mo, 1799. His principal work, however, is that entitled Des Rapports du Physique et du Morale de l'Homme, 1803, in two volumes 8vo. This work was reprinted in the following year, with the addition of a copious analytical table of its contents by M. Destutt-Tracy, and alphabetical indexes by M. Sue. His Coup d'Œil sur les Révolutions et les Réformes de la Médecine appeared in 1803. Of this work we possess an excellent English translation, with notes by Dr Henderson. His only practical work on medicine is the Observations sur les Affections Catarrhales en général, et particulièrement sur celles connues sous le nom de Rhumes de Cerveau, et
Rhumes de Poitrine, 8vo, 1807. He also wrote many interesting articles in the Magasin Encyclopédique.