560 



the " Elementa" of Haller, and making no pretence to emulate the 

 prodigious learning and elaborate finish of that stupendous work, 

 which occupied its author for the greater part of a long life, Miiller's 

 " Handbook" was accepted, we may almost say, with universal 

 accord, as the most valuable general work on physiology which had 

 appeared in the long interval since Haller's time. And, indeed, 

 the two great physiological writers have much in common. In 

 both, we perceive the same earnest purpose of placing the doctrines 

 of physiology on a basis of fact, the same constant endeavour to 

 extend and consolidate this foundation, or test its validity, by ma- 

 terials and methods placed at their command by their accomplish- 

 ment in the cognate and collateral sciences. Anatomy, human and 

 comparative, experiments on animals, chemistry, and physical sci- 

 ence, in its various departments, are all brought to bear in the inves- 

 tigation of physiological truth. 



Miiller's work is, moreover, enriched throughout with the fruits of 

 the author's own observation and experimental inquiry, which are 

 sometimes, it is true, given with a detail better suited for a separate 

 memoir than for a chapter in a handbook, but which signally enhance 

 its value as an original source of information. Almost every part of 

 the book affords evidence of this, but it is enough to refer specially 

 to the examination of the blood, the disquisitions on the nervous 

 system, and the valuable experimental investigations on the voice 

 and hearing. Here, as in his other writings, it is characteristic of 

 Miiller that he takes nothing on trust ; every statement, whether 

 of matter of fact or doctrine, is thoroughly sifted. Difficulties, 

 however perplexing, are never evaded or slurred over ; defects, how- 

 ever they may deface the picture to be presented, are never dis- 

 guised. Every question is resolutely attacked ; the result, whether 

 success or failure, is honestly told ; and there is no yielding to the 

 temptation, so powerful with writers of systems, of rounding off a 

 rugged subject with smooth plausibilities. 



While carrying on his experimental inquiries in physiology, Miiller 

 did not neglect the study of pathological anatomy, and he was one 

 of the first to apply the microscope to the study of morbid growths * ; 



* Uebcr den feinen Bau und die Formen der Krankhaften Geschwiilste, 

 Berlin, 1838. 



