184 THERAPEUTICS AND PHARMACOLOGY 



make much advance in this direction we must know more about the 

 pathology of gout and tissue-metabolism generally, and we may then 

 hope that not only will people be more free from the manifold symp- 

 toms that gout produces, but will live longer and the time of their 

 activity, bodily and mental, will continue nearly as long as life itself. 

 The power of increasing elimination of nitrogenous waste which urea 

 possesses in a marked degree is shared by other substances belong- 

 ing to the so-called purin group and day by day fresh bodies be- 

 longing to this chemical group are being made synthetically. Some 

 of the new ones seem to have a greater power of eliminating waste 

 than any we have hitherto had. The observations of Richardson, 

 that alcohols vary in their action according to their chemical com- 

 position, and of Crum, Brown, and Fraser, that alteration in chemical 

 constitution brings about a change in physiological action, are now 

 beginning to bear rich fruit, and the synthetic preparation of reme- 

 dies having different pharmacological properties along with our in- 

 creasing knowledge of pathology gives us much hope for the future 

 of therapeutics. More than two hundred years ago, Locke said : 

 " Did we know the [mechanical] affections of rhubarb, hemlock, 

 opium, and a man as a watchmaker does those of a watch, whereby it 

 performs its operations, and of a file which by rubbing on them will 

 alter the figure of any of the wheels, we should be able to tell before- 

 hand that rhubarb will purge, hemlock kill, and opium make a man 

 sleep." One of the great problems of therapeutics is not only to know 

 (a) what drugs to use in order to obtain certain effects, but to know 

 (6) how to make such drugs if we have not got them at hand. The 

 struggle for existence does not occur only between man and beast, 

 man and man, or nation and nation, nor even between individual 

 beasts or plants. It takes place also between cell and cell, not only 

 between those cells which we term microbes and the cells which 

 form the human body, but even between those which form the dif- 

 ferent parts of the body itself. 



The great object of this Congress is to unify knowledge, to render 

 evident the similarity of the laws which govern phenomena of the 

 most diverse character, and it is therefore interesting to find that 

 the grand problem of therapeutics is for the cell what those of 

 religion and sociology are for the man, viz., to learn how to regulate 

 the environment of each cell or man in such a manner that the 

 individual shall not work for his or its own good alone, but for that of 

 others as well, and how to restrain or destroy those which are noxious. 

 When we are able to regulate cell-life by food, air, water, exercise, 

 inoculations, or medicines, we shall be able to relieve or remove 

 weakness, pain, or distress, not only from the bodies but also from 

 the minds of our patients, to maintain health, increase strength, and 

 prolong life to an extent of which at present we can hardly dream. 



