RELATION OF PHYSIOLOGY TO MEDICINE. 93 



dominates the reflex, and the account of it which has 

 passed muster for fifty years is thus imperfect. A very 

 large and quite common group of clinical symptoms, 

 including those with the military designation of " dis- 

 ordered action of the heart " and " chronic gas poisoning," 

 appears to be due to an upset of this reflex, with con- 

 sequent very shallow and therefore rapid breathing, 

 and want of oxygen, with all that this brings with it. 



When we examine the circulation we find the same 

 kind of constant regulation from minute to minute as 

 in the case of respiration ; and it is the breakdown of 

 the regulation that we have to do with in illness. But 

 of this regulation we are often given hardly an inkling 

 in the text-books, though there are abundant and 

 tiresomely minute details about the mechanics of the 

 circulation. 



It is the same with the kidneys. There are long and 

 very inconclusive discussions of the possible mechanisms 

 of secretion, but hardly any attention is given to the 

 absolutely dominant fact that, in whatever way the 

 kidneys accomplish it, they are constantly engaged in 

 regulating the composition of the blood with a fineness 

 which is almost incredible till one attempts to measure 

 it quantitatively in the same way as the fineness of 

 regulation of the breathing or circulation is measured. 



To whatever part of physiology one turns one finds 

 evidence accumulating of the fineness and omnipresence 

 of organic regulation. One necessarily misses this regu- 

 lation entirely if one takes processes and organs one by 

 one, and not in relation to the whole life of the organism. 

 Illness is disturbance of organic regulation : conse- 

 quently physiological teaching which disregards organic 



