556 



NA TV RE 



[October 7, 1897 



The remaining papers before the Section were : — Prof. J. P. 

 McMiirrich on some points in the symmetry of Actinians ; Prof. 

 Lloyd Morgan on the natural history of instinct ; Mr. W. G. 

 McCallum on the haematozoon infections of birds ; Mr. J. 

 Stafford on the post-emhryonic development of Aspidogaster 

 conchicola, and Mr. G. P. Hughes on the antlers of the red deer, 

 and on the evolution of the domestic races of cattle. Prof. 

 Lloyd Morgan, in his paper on " instinct," replied to certain 

 criticisms of the biological treatment of instinctive activities as 

 relatively definite organic responses. Mr. Rutgers Marshall had 

 argued that the "instinct of self-preservation," the "play 

 instinct," and so forth, could not be regarded 'as in any sense 

 definite. Prof. Morgan contended that these are group-terms 

 under which a number of responses, each in itself relatively 

 definite, are roughly classified. If we speak of " mimicking 

 instincts " the group is so varied as to be quite indefinite as 

 organic response. But when we study the particular cases which 

 fall within the grou]i, we find that each example shows an activity 

 of a relatively definite kind. 



The Section did not meet on Wednesday, as another natural 

 history excursion was planned for that day in conjunction with 

 Section K. It seemed desirable, to the biologists, on an occasion 

 when the meeting was held out of Britain, that every ojiportunity 

 should be taken of studying the more or less novel fauna and 

 flora. This field work has been continued by some naturalists 

 on the excursions which concluded the meeting. Thus Prof. 

 Miall and Prof. Ramsay Wright have gone to examine the 

 Algonquin Lakes ; Prof. Merdman has been dredging and tow- 

 netting in Puget Sound on the Pacific coast ; while Profs. Bower 

 and Marshall Ward have been collecting plants ; and Prof. 

 Poulton insects at many points along the line from Toronto to 

 Vancouver. 



PHYSICS AND CHEMISTRY IN RELATION 

 TO MEDICINE. 



T^HE advances of medical science due to the adoption of the 

 methods and results of physics and chemistry have recently 

 been generously acknowledged by several foremost members of 

 the medical profession, in addresses delivered before congresses, 

 and at the opening ceremonies of various medical schools on 

 October i. From the reports of a number of these addresses, 

 the subjoined expressions of opinion have been collated It is 

 gratifying to be able to put on record these authoritative views 

 as to the assistance which the physical sciences have given to 

 medical progress. 



Medical Progress due to Physical and C/ieinical Mc/Iiods.'^ 

 All recent progress in medicine has depended on research and 

 discovery carried on by ])hysical and chemical methods. The 

 mechanical principles that were first applied in anatomy, the 

 mother science of medicine, to the explanaiion of the construc- 

 tion and movements of bones and muscles have been carried by 

 the physiologist into every organ of the body and into the arcana 

 of the tissues, and have been shown to be essential to the under- 

 standing of the changes that take place in them during the per- 

 formance of their functions. And at the same time the aid of 

 chemistry and electricity has been invoked to drive back step 

 by step, and if possible to banish altogether, that vitalism which 

 was at one time all but supreme in the domain of animal physi- 

 ology. And now, not content with this corporeal conquests, the 

 physiologist is pushing his mechanical methods into the realm 

 of psychology, and is seeking by means of them to investigate 

 the data of consciousness. Having by electrical stimulation and 

 other experimental procedures localised sensory and motor centres 

 in the brain, having shown that there is a definite order of de- 

 velopment in the nerve tracts, and having disentangled to a large 

 extent the paths of nervous impulses of various kinds, their halting 

 points and goals in nerve cells, he is now eager to catch ideas on 

 the wing and to examine them in the usual manner. Helmholtz, 

 in his great works on vision and hearing, was the first to show 

 how physics mount into physiology and psychology, and 

 after him Weber, Fechner, Lotze, and Wundt have step by 

 step pushed forward the parallels of the material accompani- 

 ments of thoughts and feelings. And quite recently a 



1 Extracted from an address on " Ethics and Individualism in Medicine," 

 delivered at the opening of the winter session of the Queen's Faculty of 

 Medicine, at Mason College, Birmingham, on October i, by Sir James 

 Crichton-Browne, F.R.S. 



NO. 1458, VOL. 56] 



movement has sprung up in Germany to advance still further 

 mechanical explanation of the facts of mental life, and to 

 bring psychology, which has always been scientific in as far as 

 it has observed and classified and analysed phenomena, into line 

 , with the exact sciences of external nature. Experimental psycho- 

 I logy has been inaugurated, and research laboratories, in which 

 I the physical and vital changes that are associated with mental 

 j processes are to be measured and tested, have been established. 

 Originating in Leipzig, experimental psychology has taken root 

 in several other centres on the continent, has spread to America, 

 where it has been eagerly adopted, and has at last made its way 

 into England. The University of Cambridge has voted a sum 

 of money to be devoted to investigations in connection with it, 

 and a few months ago a meeting was held in London to 

 promote the establishment of a laboratory for its study in 

 University College. The names of those who attended that 

 meeting are a .sufficient guarantee that the project which it 

 approved will be successfully carried out. I have little doubt 

 that suitable arrangements will be made for instruction in the 

 new methods of psychophysical research in University College, 

 and that in course of time other schools and colleges — Mason 

 College amongst them — will follow its example and afford facili- 

 ties for studies in anthropometric psychology. I have little 

 doubt, too, that such studies will be fruitful of useful results, by 

 widening the scientific basis of psychology and supplying us with 

 standards by which to gauge the speed and duration of certain 

 neural operations, the variations in these in different individuals, 

 and the depth of certain mental defects. But at the same time 

 I am disposed to think that exaggerated notions are entertained 

 as to what experimental psychology can actually accomplish. Its 

 field is, after all, a narrow one. It can never supplant self-obser- 

 vation and introspection as means of mental analysis, and must 

 iridecd always to a large extent lean on these. It is practically 

 restricted to the measurement of sensations and movements 

 and the gaps between them, or the simplest mental processes ; 

 and hitherto it has, it muSt be admitted, been somewhat 

 ambiguous and indefinite in its declarations. For my own part 

 I look with more sanguine expectations of light on the 

 obscure problems of mind to comparative, ethnical, develop- 

 mental, and pathological psychology — which may all, of course, 

 be investigated by experimental methods — than to the new 

 experimental psychology strictly so-called. 



We all gratefully acknowledge the immense debt we owe to 

 experimental physiology with its exact mechanical methods. It 

 has dispelled myths and errors, supplied us with a body of 

 precise and well-organised knowledge, and revolutionised our 

 treatment of disease ; and it promises in the future not only to 

 augment our healing power, but to afford trustworthy guidance 

 in education and in the regulation of some social relations. As 

 it stands to-day physiology, it seems to me, offers a liberal 

 culture to all who study it. An independent science itself, but 

 in touch with all other sciences, it brings int(j exercise observa- 

 tion, judgment and memory, while it passes in review questions 

 of surpassing interest to every human being, and thus confers an 

 admirable intellectual discipline while storing the mind with 

 information that must prove useful in the conduct of life. 



Scientific Method in Medicine.^ 

 Various spheres of activity have exercised their influences in 

 bringing medical science to its present position. 



We must, in the first place, ascribe the greatest importance to 

 the study of anatomy. Gradually our knowledge of every detail 

 of naked-eye anatomy has been gained, and at the present time 

 every one practising medicine must have a competent knowledge 

 on the subject gained by dissection. The same systematic study 

 has extended to compaiative anatomy, and great, for its time, as 

 was the knowledge of Aristotle, it has undergone an entire 

 revolution by the application of scientific methods to increased 

 data of information l)y such workers as Cuvier, Darwin and 

 Owen. It is now taught as a branch of medical education. 

 Physiology could have no scientific basis until anatomy was 

 fairly advanced The facts on which it was at first based were 

 founded on medical observations, but in the seventeenth century 

 direct investigations and observations were commenced by Haller, 

 Hunter, Spallanzani and Hewson. It has since been prosecuted 

 with the greatest zeal and success, and the position of physiology 



1 " The Influences that have determined the Progress of Medicine during 

 the preceding Two and a half Centuries." Abridged from an address delivered 

 at the opening of the Section of Medicine, at the annual meeting of the 

 British Medical Association at Montreal, September 1897, by Dr. Stephen 



Mackenzie. 



