366 BIOLOGICAL SCIENCES AND MEDICINE XIV 



supplying any losses, keeping up a due succession, 

 etc/' (I.e. p. 133). 



If we follow Hunter's conceptions to their 

 logical issue, the life of one of the higher animals 

 is essentially the sum of the lives of all the 

 vessels, each of which is a sort of physiological 

 unit, answering to a polype ; and, as health is the 

 result of the normal " action of the vessels," so is 

 disease an effect of their abnormal action. Hunter 

 thus stands in thought, as in time, midway between 

 Borelli on the one hand, and Bichat on the other. 



The acute founder of general anatomy, in fact, 

 outdoes Hunter in his desire to exclude physical 

 reasonings from the realm of life. Except in the 

 interpretation of the action of the sense organs, 

 he will not allow physics to have anything to do 

 with physiology. 



" To apply the physical sciences to physiology 

 is to explain the phenomena of living bodies by 

 the laws of inert bodies. Now this is a false 

 principle, hence all its consequences are marked 

 with the same stamp. Let us leave to chemistry 

 its affinity ; to physics, its elasticity and its gravity. 

 Let us invoke for physiology only sensibility and 

 contractility." * 



Of all the unfortunate dicta of men of eminent 



ability this seems one of the most unhappy, when 



we think of what the application of the methods 



and the data of physics and chemistry has done 



^Aiiatomie gin^rale^ i. p. liv. 



