EPOCHS IN BIOLOGICAL HISTORY 395 



Neither Vesalius nor Harvey made an attempt to explain 

 the workings of the body by appeal to so-called physical 

 and chemical laws; and for good reason. Chemistry had 

 not yet thrown off the shackles of alchemy and taken its 

 legitimate place among the elect sciences, while during 

 Harvey's lifetime, under the influence of Galileo, the new 

 physics was born. But by the end of the seventeenth 

 century both physics and chemistry had forced their way into 

 physiology and split it into two schools. The physical school 

 was founded by BORELLI (1608-1679) of Italy, who, employ- 

 ing incisive physical methods, attacked a series of problems 

 with brilliant results; while the chemical school developed 

 from the influence of FKANCTSCUS SYLVIUS (1614-1672) of 

 Holland as a teacher rather than as an investigator. 



This awakening brought a host of workers into the field 

 and the harvest of the century was garnered and enriched 

 by HALLER (1708-1777) of Geneva. In a comprehensive 

 treatise which at once indicated the erudition and critical 

 judgment of its author, Haller established physiology as a 

 distinct and important branch of biological science. It was 

 no longer a mere adjunct of medicine. Perhaps the most 

 significant advance in Haller's century consisted in setting 

 the physiology of nutrition and of respiration both of 

 which awaited the work of the chemists well upon the way 

 toward their modern form. 



REAUMUR (1683-1757) of Paris and SPALLANZANI (1729- 

 1799) of Pavia may be singled out for their exact studies of 

 gastric digestion, which showed solution of the food to be 

 the main factor in digestion though it was not clear how 

 these changes differ from ordinary chemical ones. It was 

 left for nineteenth-century investigators to establish the fact 

 that food in passing along the digestive tract runs the gauntlet 

 of a series of complex chemical substances, each of which has 



