W. C. Sharpey, L. C. Wooldridge 305 



getting published the work of his students than of publishing 

 his own; but the few papers, which are enumerated in the 

 " Dictionary of National Biography " under his name, are 

 papers of permanent value. 



We have mentioned before that men of science were less 

 specialized at the earlier part of our period than they have 

 now become. Even the holding of professorial chairs in the 

 earlier part of the nineteenth century usually involved 

 teaching in more than one science. Up to the year 1866, 

 the professor of anatomy at Cambridge was responsible for 

 the teaching of zoology as well as for that of anatomy. In 

 many other places, the professorship of zoology was respons- 

 ible for what teaching there was in animal physiology, as 

 at Manchester, where W. C. Williamson combined the chairs 

 of botany, geology, zoology and animal physiology. In the 

 London hospitals, strictly scientific subjects were taught by 

 doctors in practice who were on the staff of the hospital. 



It is quite impossible to detail the varied and successful 

 activities of the numerous physiologists who have worked 

 during the last forty years. Conspicuous amongst them was 

 Wooldridge. He was a pioneer. He was convinced that 

 many of the chemical and quasi-chemical problems presented 

 by the processes of life had been attacked too much by 

 laboratory methods remote from the animal itself. He 

 turned to the coagulation of blood as a type of such processes, 

 and decided that an analysis of the phenomenon must involve 

 observations upon the reactions offered by the living animal. 

 He developed the technique of injecting extracts of tissue 

 and organs into the circulation, and rapidly obtained results 

 which gave new conceptions to physiology. 



He did not live to produce a finished theory of blood 

 coagulation, but it is not too much to. say that his work 

 initiated the modern studies of immunity, and was the 

 foundation of what is almost a new science. 



It is not proposed to enter into the consideration of the 

 enormous advances that English men of science have con- 

 tributed to the practice of medicine and the alleviation of 

 pain. Sir James Young Simpson (1811-1870) discovered 

 chloroform, thereby immensely improving the possibilities 

 of operations, and to a quite unbelievable extent reducing 



