EXPERIMENTAL THERAPEUTICS. 179 



our clay nan become the medicine of the future that is to say, HYGIENE 

 in its widest sense. 



In view of the obvious justice and importance of these considera- 

 tions, one cannot pass on without expressing a regret that pathology 

 has not yet, or at least not everywhere, taken its proper place as an ex- 

 perimental science, namely, as pathological physiology. In the ordinary 

 programme of academic instruction, it usually appears, either as an 

 appendix of pathological anatomy, or is lost in the subject of general 

 pathology. But the methods of pathological anatomy and of experi- 

 mental pathology are too different to be combined under one represen- 

 tative, and in one laboratory, at least in a way that will afford justice to 

 each, more especially if academic teaching be added to the duties. On 

 the other hand, it appears to me that in the training to which we at 

 present give the name of general pathology, the place of honour must 

 be assigned to experimental pathology, to an experimental analysis of the 

 phenomena of disease, and not to conclusions and abstractions drawn 

 from special pathology, which often only amount to another grouping of 

 its materials. No very important scientific advantage is likely to accrue 

 from a purely theoretical treatment of general pathology at a time 

 when the field of pathological investigation is becoming more and more 

 dependent upon the laboratory, and when its thorough exploration 

 promises to be so fruitful and so engrossing. 



One can readily conceive himself in the difficult position of the 

 physician who, in his measures against this or that disease, or in his 

 use of this or that remedy against a given symptom, often does not 

 know what the remedy in reality effects in the organism, or how it aids 

 in a given case. How insecure and indefinite must his interposition 

 often be, how much room for all sorts of chance occurrences ! Hence, 

 the endeavours of the clinician to grasp the mode of action of his 

 remedies are easily to be understood. It was for this reason that 

 therapeutics several years ago called in the method of experiment to 

 its aid. Therapeutic measures were given over to laboratory investi- 

 gation, and there their effects on the healthy organism were to be 

 analysed. At first, chemical medicaments were experimented with, and 

 from this experimental pharmacology sprang up. 



The pharmacologists have, however, bit by bit deviated from their 

 original goal, and now interest themselves but little, if at all, in the 

 healing action of a given substance. Pharmacology has thus, by a 

 natural process of development, grown to be a section of physiology. 

 It investigates the action of chemical agencies on the animal body, and 

 pursues its special theoretical aims. Against this in itself no objection 

 can be raised. The connection, however, between the mateiials of 

 pharmacology and the aims of practical medicine has thereby been 



