80 THE NEW PHYSIOLOGY. 



If we look on pathology as simply the description of 

 damage to bodily structure, and the analysis of the causes 

 of this damage, then pathology may be very helpful in 

 preventive medicine, but does not help much in thera- 

 peutics. When, however, pathology studies the pro- 

 cesses of adaptation to the unusual, defence of the organ- 

 ism against the unusual, and reproduction of the normal, 

 just as the new physiology studies the maintenance of 

 the normal under ordinary conditions, then therapeutics 

 and surgery will be aided at every step by pathology, 

 and a rational biological pharmacology will have its 

 chance. 



Sometimes one hears the complaint that the world 

 has grown old : that the great discoveries have all been 

 made ; and that nothing is left to us now but to work 

 out matters of sheer detail. Perhaps the great and 

 constantly growing mass of rather uninteresting, but 

 otherwise apparently meritorious, scientific literature 

 increases this impression. At certain moments one may 

 long for the past centuries when there was much less to 

 read, and people seemed to have plenty of time to think, 

 and to have endless material for new discoveries and 

 projects. But in reality I do not think that there was 

 ever more scope for new ideas and discoveries than there 

 is at present. Among the new ideas are those of the new 

 physiology, the outlines of which I have tried to trace 

 in this lecture. Those who do not feel inclined to accept 

 this new physiology, or who are still sceptical as to its 

 theoretical basis, will, I hope, at least make allowance 

 for any personal failure on my part to present it to them 

 in a more convincing form. 



