François Achille Longet was a French anatomist and physiologist who was a native of Saint Germain-en-Laye, Yvelines

Yvelines

Yvelines is a French department in the region of Île-de-France.-History:Yvelines was created from the western part of the defunct department of Seine-et-Oise on 1 January 1968 in accordance with a law passed on 10 January 1964 and a décret d'application from 26 February 1965.It gained the...

. He was a student of François Magendie

François Magendie

François Magendie was a French physiologist, considered a pioneer of experimental physiology. He is known for describing the foramen of Magendie. There is also a Magendie sign, a downward and inward rotation of the eye due to a lesion in the cerebellum...

 (1783-1855), and a pioneer in the field of experimental physiology. In 1853 he attained the chair of physiology

Physiology

Physiology is the science of the function of living systems. This includes how organisms, organ systems, organs, cells, and bio-molecules carry out the chemical or physical functions that exist in a living system. The highest honor awarded in physiology is the Nobel Prize in Physiology or...

 of the Faculty of Medicine in Paris

Paris

Paris is the capital and largest city in France, situated on the river Seine, in northern France, at the heart of the Île-de-France region...

. One one his better known students was German physiologist Moritz Schiff

Moritz Schiff

Moritz Schiff was a German physiologist.While working in Bern, he showed that removing the thyroid gland from dogs was fatal, and later showed that animal thyroid extract could prevent the death...

 (1823-1896).

Longet is remembered for extensive research of the autonomic nervous system

Autonomic nervous system

The autonomic nervous system is the part of the peripheral nervous system that acts as a control system functioning largely below the level of consciousness, and controls visceral functions. The ANS affects heart rate, digestion, respiration rate, salivation, perspiration, diameter of the pupils,...

, and physiological experiments of the anterior and posterior columns of the spinal cord

Spinal cord

The spinal cord is a long, thin, tubular bundle of nervous tissue and support cells that extends from the brain . The brain and spinal cord together make up the central nervous system...

 involving sensory and motor functionality. He also provided a detailed comprehensive description of nerve

Nerve

A peripheral nerve, or simply nerve, is an enclosed, cable-like bundle of peripheral axons . A nerve provides a common pathway for the electrochemical nerve impulses that are transmitted along each of the axons. Nerves are found only in the peripheral nervous system...

 innervation of the larynx

Larynx

The larynx , commonly called the voice box, is an organ in the neck of amphibians, reptiles and mammals involved in breathing, sound production, and protecting the trachea against food aspiration. It manipulates pitch and volume...

. With Jean Pierre Flourens

Jean Pierre Flourens

Marie Jean Pierre Flourens , father of Gustave Flourens, was a French physiologist, the founder of experimental brain science and a pioneer in anesthesia....

 (1794-1867), he performed pioneer experiments concerning the effects of ether

Ether

Ethers are a class of organic compounds that contain an ether group — an oxygen atom connected to two alkyl or aryl groups — of general formula R–O–R'. A typical example is the solvent and anesthetic diethyl ether, commonly referred to simply as "ether"...

 and chloroform

Chloroform

Chloroform is an organic compound with formula CHCl3. It is one of the four chloromethanes. The colorless, sweet-smelling, dense liquid is a trihalomethane, and is considered somewhat hazardous...

 on the central nervous system

Central nervous system

The central nervous system is the part of the nervous system that integrates the information that it receives from, and coordinates the activity of, all parts of the bodies of bilaterian animals—that is, all multicellular animals except sponges and radially symmetric animals such as jellyfish...

 in laboratory animals.

In 1843 with Jacques-Joseph Moreau

Jacques-Joseph Moreau

Dr. Jacques-Joseph Moreau was a French psychiatrist and member of the Club des Hashischins. Moreau was the first physician to do systematic work on drugs' effects on the central nervous system, and to catalogue, analyze, and record his observations. His 1845 book, Hashish and Mental Alienation,...

 (1804-1884), Jules Baillarger

Jules Baillarger

Jules Baillarger, full name Jules Gabriel François Baillarger was a French neurologist and psychiatrist who was born in Montbazon....

 (1809-1890) and Laurent Alexis Philibert Cerise (1807-1869) he founded the Annales médico-psychologiques, which is a journal of psychiatry

Psychiatry

Psychiatry is the medical specialty devoted to the study and treatment of mental disorders. These mental disorders include various affective, behavioural, cognitive and perceptual abnormalities...

that is still in publication today. Some other important written works by Longet are:

• Recherches expérimentales et pathologiques sur les propriétés et les fonctions des faisceaux de la moelle épinière et des racines des nerfs rachidiens (1841)
• Traité l'Anatomie et Physiologie du Système nerveux de l'Homme et des Animaux vertébrés (1842)
• Traite de physiologie (1850-)