Abstract
We often think of Claude Bernard as the inventor of a method, a sort of Descartes of biology. What a mistake and what a bore ! In contrast to this scholastic image, Claude Bernard entered physiology through an accidental observation from which he inferred that, far from being a direct chemical combustion, nutrition is a metabolic process carried out at " gentle temperature " thanks to the activity of diastases, nowknown as enzymes. The metabolites thus produced and stored - the famous glycogenic function of the liver - are released into the internal environment, helping to maintain its physiological constants. But this nutrition is not only organic, it is also " organogenic ", contributing to organ renewal over and above the renewal of molecules alone, a function illustrated by the term " silent embryogenesis ". We will discuss how, on the basis of this work, Claude Bernard revolutionized physiology by repudiating an essentially physicalist vision of the living world. This echoes - let's reread Georges Canguilhem - the parallel break made by Charles Darwin in the field of evolutionism. Here again, it's a question of milieu.
