NA TURE 



35 



THURSDAY, NOVEMBER lo, 1910. 



VHYSWLOGY AS A SPECULATIVE SCIENCE. 

 Biological Physics, Phvsic. and Metaphysic. Studies 

 and Essays. By Thomas Logan, Edited by Q. 

 McLennan and P. H. Aitken. Vol i., Biological 

 Physics. Pp. XXX + 576. Vol. ii., Physic. Pp. viii + 

 284. Vol iii., Metaphysics. Pp. vi+iio. (Lon- 

 don : H. K. Lewis, 1910.) Price, 3 vols., 245. net. 

 IN a prefatory note we read that Dr. Thomas 

 Logan was an Ayrshire man, who received his 

 ■1 medical education at Glasgow and Aberdeen, and 

 spent almost half a century on busy practice as a 

 public health officer and general practitioner, first in 

 Scotland, latterlv in Yorkshire. He died three years 

 ago, at the age of sixty-nine, leaving behind him the 

 manuscript of the three volumes now published. It 

 is stated that his editors were not permitted to make 

 alterations or excisions of any of the text, which 

 therefore appears in the form the author wished, and 

 is illustrated by a number of cuts borrowed from 

 standard works on anatomy and histology. The first 

 volume is entitled "Biological Physics," the second 

 " Physic," the third " Metaphysics." 

 " Dr. Logan would appear to have been very early 

 impressed with the truth of the aphorism, '"Circulatio 

 Circulationum omnia Circulatio," and the great bulk 

 of his volumes is devoted to the repetition and ampli- 

 fication of this text. He possessed a great facility 

 with the pen, and was never at a loss for a word or 

 words to express his meaning. Hence his sentences 

 run to 10, 15, or, in favourable instances, 25 lines or 

 more in length. As a philosopher, he committed him- 

 self to unbridled speculation and unchastened 

 teleologA, employing the deductive method that has 

 found so little favour since the end of the sixteenth 

 centun*-. Thus, for example, he showed (i., p. 165) 

 that the axon of a nerve-cell must be — and therefore 

 is — 



"a compound of at least four tubes circulating fluids 

 and substances of diflferent consistence, and qualities, 

 along its intra-spaces, each circulation differing from 

 the other according to the consistence of its material 

 and the freedom from obstacles to its onward pro- 

 gress, the two inner being necessarily slow, but the 

 two outer necessarily relatively quick." 



With ever\- nerve-fibre acting as a four-fold tube, 

 there can be no doubt that circulation might proceed 

 merrily indeed; but anatomical or microscopical 

 evidence either that these fibres are tubes, or that they 

 do serve as circulator)- channels. Dr. Logan offered 

 none. He was, also, on purely a priori grounds, a 

 firm believer in the importance and activitv of the 

 pituitary gland. After describing its position in the 



skull, he went on to say (i., p. 94) : 



• Situated thus, it, the pituitary- bodv, must become 



tKe receptacle of a mixture of materials, consisting of 



eerebro-spmal lymph, endothelial cell debris, neuroglial 



jzmgs. and whatever else obtains an entrance into 



:. r.hich it must of anatomical necessitv dispose of. 



id this, we claim, must be its function; and surelv 



» mean function, yea, a function second to none in 



-e whole category- of glandular functions in its direct 



anngs on the grreat problem of life and health." 



NO. 2 141, VOL. 85I 



It may be noted in passing that he offered a solu- 

 tion for one at least of these great problems, by say- 

 ing what life is (i., p. 445) : — 



•• Life, therefore, is a tripartite, but indis>olubly 

 united, transcendental entity, beginning with the 

 vitalisation of the elements of nutrition * culminating 

 in their organic incorporation, and ending with their 

 devitalisation and elimination." 



Discussing the pituitary and pineal bodies, he 

 did not agree that they are survivals of once important 

 organs (i.. p. 97) :— 



" Surz'ivals forsooth ! *Tis nothing less than an 

 insult to nature, and an impeachment of her working 

 and administration of the law of ' evolution, ' to manu- 

 facture and propagate this stor\- of her prodigality 

 in the use of most valuable cephalic, or brain, space 

 as a museum for the storage of obsole,;e organisms, 

 and her persistent exhibition of a juvenile affection 

 for the display of some of the works of her ' prentice ' 

 hand in this, the gallen,- of her latest, best, and finest 

 productions ! These structures, called pituitary and 

 pineal glands respectively, are illustrations of the 

 truth of this exclamation and contention, and, it 

 seems to us, that their more exhaustive study will 

 reveal many facts indicating that they are structures 

 of the greatest functional importance in the regulation 

 of the cerebro-spinal lymph circulation, a circulation 

 of equal importance with the great blood-circulation, 

 and a circulation, in fact, emanating from the blood- 

 circulation, and the last of the great series of circula- 

 tions involved in the chain of I'ital processes called by 

 the names deglutition, digestion, absorption, circiila- 

 tion proper, nutrition, assimilation, secretion, arid 

 excretion." 



Dr. Logan was no less successful in tracing out the 

 path followed bv these pituitarv- products ; speaking 

 of the tongue, he said (i., p. 545) : — 



" Here, then, we claim to see the theatre of one of 

 the concluding acts of the great cerebro-excretory cir- 

 culation and the final disposal of the residual pituitary 

 material, which finds its way through the pituitary 

 gland, and which in turn finds its way through the 

 lateral sphenoidal foraminal openings into the ton- 

 sillar bodies, and thence into the amorphous and semi- 

 adipose material matrix, in the inter-muscular spaces 

 of the tongue, where it affords that semi-plastic and 

 fainth-fluid material in the discharge of which the 

 epithelial covering and papillan,- structures of that 

 org^an are constantly engaged." 



One may doubt whether obscurantism could go 

 further. Enough of Dr. Logan's writing has been 

 quoted to exhibit the surge and flow of verbiage on 

 which he launched his a priori theories, and floated 

 his elaborate yet elusive and illusory deductions. 

 Throughout his essays he was content with specu- 

 lation and assertion, rarely did he come down to 

 the level of simple fact and commonplace proof of 

 his novel views. So little was he in agreement with 

 the modern spirit or methods of scientific investiga- 

 tion that one cannot but see in him a writer fared to 

 live some two or three centuries after his time. His 

 volumes illustrate very clearly the strength and the 

 weakness of the undisciplined scientific imagination, 

 so-called, and show the limitations of the arm-chair 

 man of science to perfection. They should be of no 

 little interest to collectors of the literarv curiosities 

 of science. A. J. J. B. 



C 



