118 PATHOLOGY 



no matter to what specialty the case may be referred in conse- 

 quence of the great differentiation of medical art with which we are 

 familiar. 



Practical medicine is availing itself more and more of the methods 

 of scientific medicine. The laboratory is entering into closer and 

 closer relations with the clinic. For the purpose of facilitating inves- 

 tigation as well as treatment it has been found advantageous to 

 include various laboratories in the clinic, and the use of laboratory 

 methods has extended to all departments of medical practice where 

 their field of usefulness is constantly enlarging. How these methods 

 may be made most easily available for the practitioner has now 

 become a problem of real urgency. Pathology is consequently a great 

 force in the interests of integration as opposed to differentiation in 

 medicine; for pathology gathers under her wings all the specialties 

 which differ not as to methods but only in the matter of the fields 

 investigated. 



Whatever the role of pure morphology in the investigations of 

 fundamental biological problems and it does not seem likely that 

 it will lose greatly in significance in this respect so long as biologists 

 regard the peculiar complexus of physical conditions called struc- 

 ture as absolutely essential to life it always will maintain relations 

 of fundamental importance in medicine. Medical and surgical 

 diagnosis rests to a large extent upon the recognition of the nature 

 and cause of gross changes in structure and their consequences on 

 function. To the surgeon pathological anatomy is a guide whose 

 minutest direction he must obey. Exact clinical observation con- 

 trolled so much as ever possible by anatomical examination will 

 continue, as emphasized always by Chr. Fenger, the mainstay of 

 medical progress in every locality. The value of microscopic anatomy 

 in the study of diseases of the blood, in the differentiation of new 

 growths, and in inflammatory products needs only mention. Many 

 of the methods of microbiology are essentially morphologic. The 

 established classification of bacteria is based on morphology, and the 

 studies of the relations of microorganisms to the cells of the body 

 often a matter of great importance requires morphologic methods. 



I believe there is no room for the opinion one occasionally hears 

 expressed to the effect that the value of the usual methods of mor- 

 phology and microbiology in scientific pathologic investigation has 

 been exhausted. Of course the field cannot be said to be so large as 

 at one time, but there are still problems enough demanding the use 

 of these very methods, refinements and improvements in which are 

 constantly increasing their usefulness. Unquestionably advances 

 in our knowledge of functional localization and in the tracing of 

 conduction paths in the central nervous system of man will con- 

 tinue to depend in the main on the careful study of anatomical 



