Memoir on the Discovery

periodic revolutions The author refers to "revolutions" in the sense of cyclical changes or biological rhythms. that we observe in the female sex, and generally those which Physicians of all times and all countries have observed in diseases.

My object then was only to fix the attention of Physicians; but far from having succeeded, I soon perceived that I was accused of eccentricity, that I was treated as a "man of systems" A derogatory term in the 18th century for a theorist who prioritizes abstract ideas over practical observation., and that I was being made a criminal for my propensity to leave the ordinary path of Medicine.

I have never concealed my way of thinking in this regard, being unable indeed to persuade myself that we have made, in the art of healing art of healing: the practical application of medical knowledge, the progress upon which we have flattered ourselves; I believed on the contrary, that the more we advanced in the knowledge of the mechanism and the economy of the animal body economy of the animal body: the functional organization and internal balance of a living being, the more we were forced to recognize our