368 BIOLOGICAL SCIENCES AND MEDICINE xiv 



properties of each tissue are distinct from those of 

 the rest, it is evident that tlie diseases of each 

 tissue must be dilferent from those of the rest. 

 Therefore, in any organ composed of different 

 tissues, one may be diseased and the other remain 

 healthy; and this is what happens in most cases 

 (/. c. Ixxxv.). 



In a spirit of true prophecy, Bichat says, " We 

 have arrived at an epoch in which pathological 

 anatomy should start afresh." For, as the analysis 

 of the organs had led him to the tissues as the 

 physiological units of the organism; so, in a 

 succeeding generation, the analysis of the tissues 

 led to the cell as the physiological element of the 

 tissues. The contemporaneous study of develop- 

 ment brought out the same result; and the 

 zoologists and botanists, exploring the simplest 

 and the lowest forms of animated beings, confirmed 

 the great induction of the cell theory. Thus the 

 apparently opposed views, which have been 

 battling with one another ever since the middle 

 of the last century, have proved to be each half 

 the truth. 



The proposition of Descartes that the body of a 

 living man is a machine, the actions of which are 

 explicable by the known laws of matter and 

 motion, is unquestionably largely true. But it is 

 also true, that the living body is a synthesis of 

 innumerable physiological elements, each of which 

 may nearly be described, in Wolff's words, as a 



