146 NATURAL SCIENCE [March 



cut short and his researches on the fish fauna of the Lower Nile 

 put an end to, we must express our decided opinion, which we • are 

 quite sure will be the opinion of all our readers, that in taking this 

 step the Government of Egypt is not behaving fairly to its subject 

 population. With this population fish ranks higher than flesh, and 

 an enormous saving to the scattered wealth of the country could 

 easily be made in a very short time by a properly equipped depart- 

 ment. Our position in Egypt will hardly be strengthened in the 

 eyes of the world by such retrograde actions as that of which we- 

 now complain. 



Two Views of Physiology 



The Eullerian Professorship of Physiology at the Eoyal Institution 

 was recently vacated by Professor Waller, since he was unable 

 to obtain a laboratory, without which he declared neither the 

 investigation nor the teaching of physiology could be prosecuted. 

 This has not prevented Professor E. Pay Lankester from accepting 

 the same chair. Professor Lankester, to judge from the first of his 

 lectures on " The Simplest Living Things," now being delivered at 

 the Royal Institution, holds broader ideas as to the meaning of the 

 term physiology. He eases his conscience by interpreting it in its 

 old sense, for which we now generally use the term biology. He is 

 more than right, for there is no doubt that physiology to-day is 

 becoming less the study of functions of specialised organs and more 

 a study of the properties of living matter itself, as exemplified in 

 the lowliest of organisms. 



The view that we have just expressed was in fact strongly 

 emphasised by Dr J. Loeb at the recent meeting of the American 

 Society of Naturalists. His address is printed in the Botanical 

 Gazette for January, and we hope our excellent contemporary will 

 pardon us if we make copious extracts : " Living matter is a 

 collective term for the quality common to all living organisms. 

 Comparative physiology alone enables us to discriminate between the 

 general properties of living matter and th€ functions of specific 

 organs, such as the blood, the nerves, the sense organs, chlorophyll, 

 etc. Nothing has retarded the progress of physiology and 

 pathology more than the neglect of comparative physiology. 

 Comparative physiology shows that secretion is a general 

 function of all living organisms and occurs even where there is 

 no circulation. Hence it was a priori false and waste of time 

 to attempt to explain secretion from the experiments on blood 

 pressure. Oxidations occur regardless of circulation, and it was 

 a priori a waste of time to consider the blood as the seat of 

 oxidation. Comparative physiology has shown that the reactions of 



