348 BIOLOGICAL SCIENCES AND MEDICINE xiv 



living beings. In fact, the practical aspect of medi- 

 cine so far dominates over every other, that the 

 " Healing Art " is one of its most widely-received 

 synonyms. It is so difficult to think of medicine 

 otherwise than as something which is necessarily 

 connected with curative treatment, that we are apt 

 to forget that there must be, and is, such a thing 

 as a pure science of medicine a " pathology " 

 which has no more necessary subservience to prac- 

 tical ends than has zoology or botany. 



The logical connection between this purely 

 scientific doctrine of disease, or pathology, and 

 ordinary biology, is easily traced. Living matter 

 is characterised by its innate tendency to exhibit a 

 definite series of the morphological and physio- 

 logical phenomena which constitute organisation 

 and life. Given a certain range of conditions, and 

 these phenomena remain the same, within narrow 

 limits, for each kind of living thing. They furnish 

 the normal and typical character of the species, 

 and, as such, they are the subject-matter of 

 ordinary biology. 



Outside the range of these conditions, the normal 

 course of the cycle of vital phenomena is disturbed ; 

 abnormal structure makes its appearance, or the 

 proper character and mutual adjustment of the 

 functions cease to be preserved. The extent and 

 the importance of these deviations from the typical 

 life may vary indefinitely. They may have no 

 noticeable influence on the general well-being of 



