l8o UNIVERSITY OF MISSOURI BULLETIN 



must employ other methods than those of observation and 

 description, and, therefore, we hail the experimental zoologists 

 as the guide of our future. 



It may very well be asked and it is asked, even among 

 ourselves: How does the experimental zoologist differ from 

 the physiologist? Is there really enough difference between 

 the two to justify a new name? Well, perhaps there is not, 

 but we all like a name for our own company better than 

 being taken into some other camp, and the term is justified 

 because the experimental zoologist commands the whole re- 

 sources of the animal kingdom and attacks a variety of 

 subjects in a way that your physiologist has never done in 

 the past. And yet there is no natural division between the 

 two lines of work. 



We may now summarize this introduction by saying, that 

 the term cxperhnental zoology has arisen because the science 

 has been_, until very recent years, concerned principally with 

 a conquest of the structural features of animal life and with 

 the observation of the course of events under natural condi- 

 tions. In doing this, we have reached a point where such 

 studies no longer yield significant results and have turned to 

 the experimental method, asking not merely what are the 

 facts and their superficial sequence, but also how does one 

 thing definitely and precisely control another. The experi- 

 mental method is, therefore, becoming the most important 

 one in zoology, and, with respect to many lines of investiga- 

 tion which are now and will long continue to be interesting 

 and profitable, it is the conviction of many of us that, from 

 this time on, men of creative originality will be concerned 

 rather with experimental than with purely observational work 

 and that the rank and file will follow this leadership. 



THE SCOPE OF EXPERIMENTAL ZOOLOGY 



I wish now to present some of the general problems 

 which are being attacked by the experimental zoologist today, 



