BORDEU, Théophile de. Recherches sur le tissu muqueux, ou l'organe cellulaire, et sur quelques maladies de la poitrine. 1791.

Bordeu, a graduate of Montpellier and the principal representative of clinical medicine in eighteenth-century France, was the chief representative if not the founder of the school of Vitalism.
In this work, today considered as one of the most important works in the history of cell theory, Bordeu "described connective tissue - under the name mucous tissue - showing its role in exchanges, the phenomena of nutrition, and the mechanical equilibrium of organs and tissues" (DSB, II, p. 301).