PREFACE. 



rpHE following Lectures were delivered as the " Lane 

 -■- Lectures" at the Cooper Medical College in San Fran- 

 cisco in the autumn of the past year. I have here and there 

 expanded some parts, but otherwise the Lectures now appear 

 very much as I delivered them. I do not pretend to have 

 given a complete history of physiology even within the period 

 to which I have limited myself. I have chosen certain themes 

 which seemed to me important and striking, and I have striven 

 to develope these, leaving untold a great deal which might 

 be told concerning other themes. I have woven into the 

 story of ideas, the stories of the personal lives of the men 

 who gave birth to those ideas, partly in order to add to the 

 human interest of the tale, but also and even more so because, 

 in most cases at least, the fruitfulness of the labours of an 

 inquirer is largely dependent on the inquirer's character and 

 belongings. 



I very much fear that I have allowed many mistakes in 

 what I have written to go unnoticed and uncorrected. I may 

 plead in excuse that historical research, perhaps above all other 

 kinds of research, demands ample leisure, and the time which 

 I have been able to give to the present little work has been 

 snatched from a life broken into bits by many and varied 

 duties. I shall be very thankful to have my mistakes 

 pointed out. 



M. FOSTER. 



Cambridge, 



March 8, 1901. 



