446 JOHN CALL DALTON. 



mand of simple, exact, and attractive language, and in consequence 

 never failed to attract and retain the attention of listener and reader. 

 His great merit was this, that he made a place here for the study of 

 experimental physiology. He had been preceded by Magendie and 

 Claude Bernard in Europe, but in this country he was incontestably 

 the leader. 



His first published work of importance was an essay on the " Cor- 

 pus Luteum of Pregnancy." This received a prize offered by the 

 American Medical Association, and was at once recognized as the 

 work of an independent and careful investigator. 



In 1859 appeared the first edition of the "Treatise on Human 

 Physiology." This work was soon found to be better adapted to 

 the uses of students of medicine than any other then in existence, 

 and it has been the text-book of the majority of the physicians of this 

 country. It was one of the few text-books in which a teacher of phy- 

 siology had ventured to discard the well-worn commonplaces, which 

 seem to have a meaning, but are, in fact, nothing but abstract ideas, 

 and scarcely recognize a connection between the laws that govern the 

 universe and those that affect the human body. Vital force was a 

 phrase much used ; and so long as the student was taught that this 

 mysterious something was the only explanation of the functional 

 activities, investigation was necessarily at a standstill. 



Dalton brilliantly asserted the claims of original investigation upon 

 the living subject to the chief place in the study of physiology. Both 

 the merits and the defects of this book were eminently characteris- 

 tic of the man. The subjects not sufficiently elaborated in this 

 work — and they are few in number — were those which had not 

 been experimentally studied by himself. That this text-book after 

 the lapse of thirty years is still in general use, is conclusive evidence 

 of the careful revisions and additions which the author was constantly 

 making. 



His pronounced position brought upon him the reproaches and 

 threats of those who oppose vivisection under all circumstances. 

 Before legislative bodies, as well as at the bar of public opinion, he 

 maintained most convincingly the position he had early assumed, — 

 that vivisection, as he practised and taught it, was essentially humane. 



In 1885 he published his "Topographical Anatomy of the Brain." 

 In this, his last contribution to science, as in his earliest essay, the 

 same good qualities are manifest. lie sought to display the structure 

 of the brain, — so far at least as the unaided eye can study it. For- 

 tunately he brought his great work to a conclusion, and has built by 



