554 



NATURE 



[October 6, 1898 



ments observed at Brazil by the Holland Commission. The last 

 section is devoted to some miscellaneous data, and contains, 

 among other matters, tables for determining, rapidly and 

 approximately, the elements of a triangulation by the method 

 proposed by Mr. Francis Galton. 



RECENT ADVANCES IN SCIENCE, AND 

 THEIR BEARING ON MEDICINE AND 

 SURGERY.^ 

 'T'HE honour of being invited to deliver the second Huxley 

 ■*■ Lecture has deeply moved me. How beautiful are these 

 days of remembrance which have become a national custom of the 

 English people ! How touching is this act of gratitude when 

 the celebration is held at the very place wherein the genius of 

 the man whom it commemorates was first guided towards its 

 scientific development ! We are filled not alone with admiration 

 for the hero, but at the same time with grateful recognition of 

 the institution which planted the seed of high achievement in 

 the soul of the youthful student. That you, gentlemen, should 

 have entrusted to a stranger the task of giving these feelings 

 expression seemed to me an act of such kindly sentiment, im- 

 plying such perfect confidence, that I at first hesitated to accept 

 it. How am I to find in a strange tongue words which shall 

 perfectly express my feelings ? How shall I, in the presence of 

 a circle of men who are personally unknown to me, but of whom 

 many knew him who has passed away and had seen him at 

 work, always find the right expression for that which I wish to say 

 as well as a member of that circle itself could ? I dare not believe 

 that I shall throughout succeed in this. But if, in spite of all, 

 I repress my scruples it is because I know how indulgently my 

 English colleagues will judge my often incomplete statements, 

 and how fully they are inclined to pardon deficiency in diction if 

 they are convinced of the good intentions of the lecturer. 



Professor Huxley's Work. 

 I may assume that such a task would not have been allotted 

 to me had not those who imposed it known how deeply the feel- 

 ing of admiration for Huxley is rooted within me, had they not 

 seen how fully I recognised the achievements of the dead master 

 from his first epoch-making publications, and how greatly I 

 prized the personal friendship which he extended towards me. 

 In truth, the lessons that I received from him in his laboratory — 

 a very modest one according to present conditions — and the in- 

 troduction to his work which I owe to him, form one of the 

 pleasantest and most lasting recollections of my visit to Kensing- 

 ton. The most competent witness of Huxley's earliest period of 

 development. Prof. Foster, presented in the first of these lectures 

 a picture of the rapidly increasing extension of the biological 

 knowledge, which must have excited not only our admiration, 

 but also the emulation of all who study medicine. Upon me the 

 duty is incumbent of incorporating with this presentment the 

 newer strides of knowledge and of stating their influence upon 

 the art of healing. So great a task is this that it would be pre- 

 sumptuous even to dare to attempt its accomplishment in a single 

 lecture. I have decided, therefore, that I must confine myself 

 to merely sketching the influence of biological discoveries upon 

 medicine. In this way also will the example of Huxley be most 

 intelligible to us. I must here make a confession. When I tried 

 to ascertain how much time would be required to deliver my 

 lecture as I had prepared it, I found, to my regret, that its 

 delivery would occupy nearly double the time assigned to me. I 

 had therefore to reduce it to about half of its original dimensions. 

 This could only be done by means of very heroic cuts, seriously 

 damaging in more than one place my chain of ideas. If, there- 

 fore, you should find, gentlemen, that my transitions from one 

 point to the other occasionally are of a somewhat sudden and 

 violent character, I trust you will bear with me and remember 

 that, if you should take the trouble of reading my address after- 

 wards, you will be less shocked than you may be to-day by my 

 statements when they appear in print. 



The Beginnings of Biology. 



Huxley himself, though trained in the practical school of 

 -Charing-cross Hospital, won his special title to fame in the 

 domain of biology. As a matter of fact, at that time even the 

 1 The second Huxley lecture, delivered by Prof. R. Virchow at the open- 

 ing of the winter session of Charing Cross Hospital Medical School, on 

 . October 3. Reprinted from the Times. 



NO. I 5 10, VOL. 58] 



name of biology had not come into general use. It was only 

 recently that the idea of life itself obtained its full significance. 

 Even in the late middle ages it had not sufficient strength to 

 struggle through the veil of dogmatism into the light. I am 

 glad to be able to-day for the second time to credit the English 

 nation with the service of having made the first attempts to 

 define the nature and character of life. It was Francis Glissori, 

 who, following expressly in the footsteps of Paracelsus, investi- 

 gated the princtpium vita. If he could not elucidate the 

 nature of life, he at least recognised its main characteristic. 

 This is what he was the first to describe as "irritability," the 

 property on which the energy of living matter depends. How 

 great was the step from Paracelsus to Glisson, and — we may 

 continue — from Glisson to Hunter ! According to Paracelsus,, 

 life was the work of a special spiritus, which set material sub- 

 stance in action, like a machine ; for Glisson, matter itself was 

 i\\e principmm energeticum . Unfortunately, he did not confine 

 this dictum to living substances only, but applied it to substance 

 in general, to all matter. It was Hunter who first announced 

 the specific nature of living matter as contrasted with non-livings 

 and he was led to place a materia vitce diffusa at the head of 

 his physiological and pathological views. According to the 

 teaching of Hewson and Hunter, the blood supplied the plastic 

 materials of physiology as well as the plastic exudates of 

 pathology. Such was the basis of the new biological method, 

 if one can apply such an expression to a still incomplete 

 doctrine, in 1842, when Huxley was beginning his medicai 

 studies at Charing-cross Hospital. It would lead too far afield 

 were I to recount in this place how it happened that I myself, 

 like Huxley, was early weaned from the pernicious doctrines of 

 humoral pathology. 



The Development of Biology. 



When Huxley himself left Charing-cross Hospital, in 1846, 

 he had enjoyed a rich measure of instruction in anatomy and 

 physiology. Thus trained, he took the post of naval surgeor^, 

 and by the time that he returned, four years later, he had 

 become a perfect zoologist and a keen-sighted ethnologist. 

 How this was possible, any one will readily understand who 

 knows from his own experience how great the value of personal 

 observation is for the development of independent and un- 

 prejudiced thought. For a young man who, besides collecting 

 a rich treasure of positive knowledge, has practised dissection 

 and the exercise of a critical judgment, a long sea-voyage and a 

 peaceful sojourn among entirely new surroundings afford an 

 invaluable opportunity for original work and deep reflection. 

 Freed from the formalism of the schools, thrown upon the use 

 of his own intellect, compelled to test each single object as 

 regards properties and history, he soon forgets the dogmas of 

 the prevailing system and becomes first a sceptic, and then an 

 investigator. This change, which did not fail to affect Huxley,, 

 and through which arose that Huxley whom we commemorate 

 to-day, is no unknown occurrence to one who is acquainted 

 with the history, not only of knowledge, but also of scholars. 

 We need only point to John Hunter and Darwin as closely- 

 allied examples. The path on which these men have achieved 

 their triumphs is that which biology in general has trodden with 

 ever-widening strides since the end of last century — it is the 

 path of genetic investigation. We Germans point with pride to- 

 our countryman who opened up this road with full conviction 

 of its importance, and who directed towards it the eyes of the 

 world — our poet-prince Goethe. What he accomplished in 

 particular from plants others of our fellow-countrymen achieved 

 from animals — Wolf, Meckel, and our whole embryological 

 school. As Harvey, Haller, and Hunter had once done, so 

 these men began also with the study of the " ovulum," but this 

 very soon showed that the egg was itself organised, and that 

 from it arose the whole series of organic developments. When 

 Huxley, after his return, came to publish his fundamental 

 observations he found the history of the progressive trans- 

 formations of the contents of the egg already verified ; for it 

 was by now known that the egg was a cellj and that from it 

 fresh cells, and from them organs, arose. The second of his 

 three famous papers — that on the relationship between man and 

 the animals next beneath him — limned in exemplary fashion the 

 parallelism in the earliest development of all animal beings. 

 But beyond this it stepped boldly across the border-line which 

 tradition and dogma had drawn between man and beast. 

 Huxley had no hesitation in filling the gaps which Darwin had 

 left in his argument, and in explaining that "in respect of 



