[NiCHOLLs] MEDICINE AND OTHER NATURAL SCIENCES 5 



the first to observe bacteria. Considering the imperfect means at his 

 disposal, a magnifying glass composed of a single lens of short focus, 

 which he apparently found superior to the compound microscopes 

 of the time, he described the various objects that he saw with singular 

 accuracy, among them the corpuscles of the blood, spermatozoa, the 

 composite structure of the eyes in insects, the scales on the wings of 

 moths, the tubules in human teeth. It is worthy of remark also that 

 he was the first naturalist of note to refute the current doctrine of 

 spontaneous generation. The perfection of the microscope by the cor- 

 rection of spherical and chromatic aberration, the addition of the 

 illuminating mirror, and the sub-stage condenser, led to an immense 

 increase in its power, and first rendered possible the science of bac- 

 teriology, which has wrought such a marvellous change in our concep- 

 tions of disease processes. Virchow was thereby enabled to spell out 

 the language of an exact science of Medicine and his great work "Die 

 cellular Pathologie" was not only revolutionary in character but evolu- 

 tionary, representing another step forward in the march of progress. 

 For the last fifty years the great German savant's doctrines have domi- 

 nated medical thought. With Virchow, however, closes one great 

 chapter in pathology. His time was the time of accurate observation 

 and description, though the principles which he based upon his facts 

 will doubtless continue to colour our conceptions of disease processes. 

 It is probably safe to say that no discovery of the first rank will in the 

 future be made by the microscope, at any rate, with regard to the 

 structural manifestations of disease. Already, we may see notable 

 evidences of a change of view-point. Morphology has had its day and 

 we are beginning to seek for the explanation of disease in disordered 

 function. Deficient, excessive, or perverted function, whether the re- 

 sult of structural changes and defects, or the occasion of them, are, 

 after all, the most obtrusive evidences of disease; from the patients' 

 point of view, are the disease. To understand these disturbances, we 

 must understand the natural workings of the body. The cell, the unit 

 of structure, must be our starting point, and in the life history of the 

 cell we have the key to unlock most of the mysteries of metabolism. 

 What is now the fashion to call pathological physiology, though this 

 involves a contradiction in terms, has come to the fore. 



When Huxley in 1868 first formally enunciated the doctrine 

 that life has a physical basis, he was met with a storm of objection 

 and disapproval. To-day no scientific man has the least doubt of it. 

 In protoplasm, or as it is now termed bioplasm, is the secret of life. 

 But we have advanced much farther than Huxley was enabled to go. 

 We may now postulate that all the phenomena which we commonly 

 associate with the idea of vitality are related to and conditioned by 



