The Physiological Theory of Medicine was originated by Broussais (1772-1838), and combined the views of Pinel and Bichat with the "sympathetic" view of Hoffmann, the "concealed inflammation" of Stoll, and the theory of inflammation held by Marcus. Broussais had been a pupil of Bichat. In 1814 he began hospital teaching, and in 1831 was made professor. Personally very vain, quick-tempered, even belligerent, as a therapeutist he was a man of routine. He was, perhaps, best known shortly before his death, when delivering lectures on phrenology. According to him, life depends upon external irritation, produced by heat, which excites new chemical processes, while these in turn stimulate regeneration, assimilation, as well as contractility, and sensibility. When the functions supported by heat cease, death ensues. Health depends upon moderate action of external irritants; disease, upon either their weakness or their extraordinary strength. He saw nothing ontological about disease. In therapeutics he admitted the healing power of Nature, but regarded the physician not as a minister, but as a lord of Nature. Febrile and inflammatory diseases were all treated by the withdrawal of nourishment, carried to the extreme. His most powerful antiphlogistic treatment consisted in the application of leeches to the abdomen,{244} and to robust individuals he applied from thirty to fifty at once It is not, then, to be wondered at that, in consequence of his so-called "hirudinomania," leeches became very scarce In the year 1833 forty-one million five hundred thousand leeches were imported into France, while in 1824 one-twentieth of this number sufficed to supply the demand. Even in cases of worms, the abdominal integument had to pay its blood-tribute, particularly if enteritis prevailed. He only allowed a spare diet of mucilaginous and acid drinks. In mercurial France and Italy he gained numerous followers, but they were few and far between in practical, hard-headed Germany and England. His best follower was Bouillaud (1797-1881), who adopted the symptomatic nature of fever and the sanguinary therapeutics of his master, but used the lancet more than the leech. As the homoeopaths regard Hahnemann, so Bouillaud looked up to Broussais as the Messiah of medicine and science, which, as Baas says were "already greatly overstocked with Messiahs."