4 PHYSIOLOGY AND NATIONAL NEEDS 



for physiologists have rightfully resented the im- 

 putation that their science occupies a humble or 

 menial place. Physicians also have realised that 

 the whole of the science of pathology or disease is 

 the direct outcome of an accurate knowledge of 

 physiology. How many people would place trust 

 in a repairer of unhealthy watches who had no 

 knowledge of the working of a healthy watch ? 



During the last four years we have had striking 

 illustrations of the usefulness of the physiologists 

 in the help they have rendered to humanity during 

 the war. It has been a war in which science 

 has played a leading role. It has been so for 

 mechanicians of every sort, on the land, on the sea, 

 and in the air. It has been so for the chemists 

 who devised new explosives and new methods of 

 attack, for instance, the poison gases. Many other 

 examples of the chemical side of warfare might be 

 adduced, but let us see what physiologists and 

 physiological chemists have done. They stepped 

 in not to add to the horrors of the battlefield, but 

 to alleviate distress, and the very agent, chlorine, 

 used for destructive purposes became in their hands 

 the basis of the new antiseptics which have done 

 so much to cure the wounds of war. 



In former wars the enemy's bullets killed their 

 thousands, but smaller foes, micro-organisms, killed 

 their tens of thousands. How different this present 

 war has been ! Typhoid, the old enemy, has almost 



