II OF THE NATURAL HISTORY SCIENCES 61 



The practical value of Physiological knowledge! 

 Why is it that educated men can be found to main- 

 tain that a slaughter-house in the midst .of a great 

 city is rather a good thing than otherwise? — that 

 mothers persist in exposing the largest possible 

 amount of surface of their children to the cold, by 

 the absurd style of dress they adopt, and then 

 marvel at the peculiar dispensation of Providence, 

 which removes their infants by bronchitis and 

 gastric fever? Why is it that quackery rides ram- 

 pant over the land; and that not long ago, one 

 of the largest public rooms in this great city could 

 be filled by an audience gravely listening to the 

 reverend expositor of the doctrine — that the simple 

 physiological phasnomena known as spirit-rapping, 

 table-turning, phreno-magnetism, and I know not 

 what other absurd and inappropriate names, are 

 due to the direct and personal agency of Satan? 



Why is all this, except from the utter ignorance 

 as to the simplest laws of their own animal life, 

 which prevails among even the most highly edu- 

 cated persons in this country? 



But there are other branches of Biological Sci- 

 ence, besides Physiology proper, whose practical 

 influence, though less obvious, is not, as I believe, 

 less certain. I have heard educated men speak 

 wdth an ill-disguised contempt of the studies of the 

 naturalist, and ask, not without a shrug, " What is 

 the use of knowing all about these miserable ani- 

 mals — what bearing has it on human life? " 



