i28 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY 



Here we must leave the story of the infectious diseases, which has 

 occupied our attention from the beginning of the third lecture to this 

 point, and turn to a brief discussion of other methods of modern re- 

 search in medicine, those of physiological chemistry, pharmacology and 

 experimental pathology, which had their beginnings in the subjects 

 (chemistry, physiology and pathology) discussed in the second lecture. 

 The presentation must, however, necessarily be but brief and fragmen- 

 tary, a mere summary, in fact, of aims and methods. 



Physiological Chemistry. — The beginnings in this most important 

 field of research were in Liebig's exact methods 4 for the study of organic 

 chemistry and Wohler's studies which are famous on account of his 

 synthesis of urea. It is usually stated that the cultivation of physi- 

 ological chemistry as a distinct science, with independent institutes of 

 its own, dates from the eighth decade of the past century, when Hoppe- 

 Seyler in 1872 established his laboratory at Strassburg and in 1877 

 founded the Zeitschrift f. physiologische Chemie. But although this 

 period does represent the first attempt to sharply separate laboratories 

 of physiological chemistry from those of organic chemistry, on the one 

 hand, and of physiology, on the other, the first independent chair of 

 physiological chemistry was established as my colleague, Dr. John 

 Marshall, informs 5 me, at the University of Tubingen in 1845 and was 

 held by Eugen Schlossberger ; likewise Schlossberger's laboratory was 

 the first one to be devoted exclusively to the study of physiological 

 chemistry. It was to this chair that Hoppe-Seyler was appointed in 

 1861, and which he held until shortly after the close of the Franco- 

 Prussian war, when he accepted a similar chair in the University of 

 Strassburg. 



4 These appeared in the following publications : ' ' Instructions for the Chem- 

 ical Analysis of Organic Bodies," 1837; "Chemistry in its Application to 

 Agriculture and Physiology," 1840; "Animal Chemistry or Organic Chemistry 

 in its Application to Physiology and Pathology," 1842; "Handbook of Organic 

 Analysis," 1853. (Dates taken from early English translations.) 



8 Dr. Marshall 's notes on the development of physiological chemistry at 

 Tiibingen are as follows: "In 1816 Dr. Med. George Kark Ludwig Sigwart at 

 the request of the Medical faculty of the University of Tiibingen delivered from 

 time to time lectures on 'Zoochemie, ' but notwithstanding that he was made 

 professor extraordinarius in 1818 he was not provided with a laboratory. In 

 1835 the professor was given the use of quarters in the laboratory for agricul- 

 tural and technical chemistry which was located in the old Tiibingen castle. In 

 1845 Eugen Schlossberger, a pupil of Liebig and of Heinrich Rose was 

 called to a professorship of physiological chemistry in Tiibingen which was the 

 first independent chair of physiological chemistry created at a German university 

 and the laboratory was the first one to be established as a separate institution. 

 From 1861 until 1872 this chair was held by Hoppe-Seyler when in 1872 he 

 resigned to accept a professorship of the same title in the newly revived univer- 

 sity at Strassburg. The laboratory in the old castle was occupied until 1885 

 when it was removed to the new building which had been erected for the subject." 



