618 CIVIL LAW while a pupil of Dupuytren at the H6tel Dieu hospital in Paris, his attention is said to have been attracted to the subject of his future dis- covery ; and after many years of perseverance he succeeded, not without encountering opposi- tion and even ridicule, in perfecting his ideas, and introducing to the profession his new opera- tion of lithotrity, i. e., crushing stone in the bladder and removing it by the natural pas- sages. Before that time the only means of extracting from the bladder a calculus of con- siderable size, was the serious and often dan- gerous operation of lithotomy. (See STONE.) He was the teacher of several generations of lithotritists, both of his own and other coun- tries, and became a member of the medical academy, an associate member of the insti- tute, and an officer of the legion of honor. His principal publications are : De la lithotritie, ou broiement de la pierre (Paris, 1827) ; Let- tres sur la lithotritie, &c. (1827) ; Traite pra- tique et historique de la lithotritie (1847) ; Jtesultats cliniques de la lithotritie pendant les annees 1860-'64 (1865). At the time of his death he had nearly finished Guide pratique pour les operations de la faille et de la litho- tritie, since published under the direction of M. Guardia, the deputy librarian of the acad- emy of medicine, with a biographical sketch, and L'Histoire de la lithotritie, d'apres des document* inedits. CIVIL LAW, the positive municipal law of the Roman empire, as comprised in the collections made by order of the emperor Justinian (530- '33) and published by his authority. These collections were the Institutes, the Digest (Pandects), the Code, and the Novelise, which, comprised in one work, are called the Corpus Juris Civilis, by way of distinction from the canon law. The Roman law in general com- prehends all the laws which prevailed among the ancient Romans, without regard to the time of their origin. The Roman jurists used the term civil law, jus civile, to designate the law applicable to Roman citizens only, in con- tradistinction to the law applicable to aliens, which was called jus gentium, the laws of other nations. With regard to its object, the Romans divided the law (jus) into public and private. The public law comprehended those rules of law which relate to the 'constitution and gov- ernment of the state, and the relations of the people to the government. The private law comprehended those rules which pertained to
- the judicial relations of citizens among them-
selves. The private law was again divided into jus naturale, jus gentium, and jus civile (natural law, the laws of other nations, and civil law). Jus naturale was the name given to that law which is derived from the animal nature of man, and from those instincts which he has in common with the brute creation. Jus gentium denoted that law which is founded upon the rational nature of man, and which on this account was recognized by all the civilized nations of the time. By jus chile they under- stood that part of the private law which was established by the state, and the enactments of which, according to Ulpian, neither totally deviate from the jus naturale and. jus gentium, nor entirely follow them ; but which sometimes add to and sometimes subtract from them. Hence, in the jus naturale man is regarded as an animal, in the jus gentium as a rational being, and in the jus civile as a member of an in- dividual community or body politic. The civil law was subdivided into written and unwritten. By the term written law was understood that which was actually committed to writing, whether it had originated by enactment or by custom, in contradistinction to such parts of the law of custom as were not committed to writing. Hence among the Romans the praeto- rian edicts (edicta prcetorum) and the legal opinions of jurists (responsa prudentum) be- longed to the written law. The law intro- duced by the praetors and aediles, through their edicts, was denominated jus honorarium (honorary law), called so no doubt from the public offices with which the praetors and aediles were invested, and from which that law issued ; and hence signifying law deliv- ered by the magistrates, as contradistinguish- ed from the strict civil law of the twelve tables and the law of custom. In order to ob- tain a full insight into the Roman law, and the civil law as preserved in the collections of Justinian, it is necessary to consider its origin, its history, and its gradual development. The history of the Roman law may be divi- ded into four periods, as first distinguished by Gibbon in his "History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire." The first period extends from the foundation of Rome to the adoption of the twelve tables, A. U. C. 1 to about 800 ; the second thence to Cicero, about A. U. C. 650 ; the third, from Cicero to Alex- ander Severus, about A. U. C. 1000; the fourth, from Alexander Severus to Justinian, about A. U. C. 1300. First Period, A. U. C. 1-800. During four fifths of this time the form of government was a monarchy. A king elected for life was the head of the state, and joined to him was a senate, con- sisting of patricians only. The legislative power remained with the people, and was ex- ercised by them in their national assemblies (comitia). The king and senate were each en- titled to propose laws, which were then dis- cussed and voted upon in the meetings of the people, at first by curice, which were formed solely by the patricians ; in later times by cen- turice, of which the plebeians also were mem- bers, whereby they first obtained some politi- cal importance and share in legislation. The laws proposed, if adopted in these meetings of the people, obtained legal force, and were known as leges curiatte or centuriatce. The an- cient leges curiata are said to have been collect- ed in the time of Tarquin the Proud, the last of the kings, by a pontifex maximus named Sextus or Publius Papirius. The existing fragments
