180 THE WORK OF THE DIGESTIVE GLANDS. 



damaged. For in spite of the fact that this connection formed an 

 essential factor in the original working plan of pharmacology, and even 

 still finds expression in the name of the science, yet in many cases it 

 has grown to be very lax and purely nominal. Thus in the ordinary text- 

 book, after the author has dealt with the physiological action of this 

 or that remedy, the indications and centra-indications to its therapeutic 

 applications are then related without any connection with the previously 

 discussed physiological action. It is in consequence of this that many 

 physicians are so little satisfied with modern pharmacology. In the 

 mutual interests of both the experimenter and the practical physician, 

 pharmacology should be completed by an experimental therapeutics. 

 Then it will deal not alone with the healthy, but also with the 

 diseased animal body. It will then study not alone the action in 

 general, of the different remedies, but also their healing influence on 

 the diseased organism. It will then in its own interests expand and 

 deepen our knowledge of the reaction <f the organism to chemical 

 agencies, and. at the same time, our knowledge also of the organism 

 itself. In the interests of the practical physician, it will, likewise 

 make clear the real importance and mode of action of a therapeutic 

 remedy. The necessity of studying the effect of such remedies on 

 diseased animals has long been recognised, and corresponding requests 

 have already been uttered. But an essential barrier to the fulfilment 

 of these requests, lay in the difficulty of procuring the necessary diseased 

 animals in the laboratory. This difficulty is now, in a large measure, 

 overcome, thanks to the advances of experimental pathology. Indeed, 

 it is only when pharmacology is blended with experimental therapeutics, 

 as above indicated, that much therapeutic delusion will pass into long 

 merited oblivion. On the other hand, the regrettable possibility will be 

 avoided, of many remedies being undeservedly thrown aside solely because 

 their pharmacological analysis, by experiments on healthy animals, has 

 not been set about, or perhaps could not be set about, in the right way, 

 simply because the animals were healthy. In the teaching plan of experi- 

 mental therapeutics the experimental investigation of other remedial 

 measures than the mere administration of chemically active substances, 

 should also find a place. At present, in the comprehensive programme 

 of medical teaching, they obtain no proper recognition. 



One may hope, not without reason, that we are to witness an 

 enormous awakening of the interest of investigators as soon as other 

 pathological processes, not merely the bacteriological, are subjected 

 in the laboratory to a bold and constantly controllable therapeutics, 

 unfettered by extraneous considerations. Nay more, we may be con- 

 vinced that the experimenter may reckon on not a few triumphs the 

 moment he sets aside the exclusive point of view of the would-be 



