An Outline of the History of Biology. 5 



" Bionomics ", but again falling into verbal disquisitions on 

 " spirits " and " temperaments ". 



(2) FUNCTIONS OF ORGANS. As the anatomists, scalpel in 

 hand, disclosed the intricate mechanism of the living engine, 

 the physiologists were bound to follow, and the study of the 

 functions of organs began. Harvey's investigation of the heart 

 was an early type of this kind of work, and Johannes Miiller 

 may be noted as one of the first to broaden the study by making 

 it comparative. 



(3) PROPERTIES OF TISSUES. Bichat was physiologist as 

 well as morphologist, and sought to express the functions of an 

 organ, like the heart, in terms of the properties of its component 

 tissues. He thus "not only deepened both morphology and 

 physiology by a new analysis, but showed them to coincide in 

 the study of tissue ". 



(4) PHASES OF CELL-LIFE. What has been said of Bichat 

 may also be said of Schwann, for there was a physiological side 

 to his cell-theory, namely, the idea, as Prof. E. Ray Lankester 

 states it, " that the differences in the properties of the different 

 tissues and organs of animals and plants depend on a difference 

 in the chemical and physical activity of the constituent cells, 

 resulting in a difference in the form of the cells, and in a con- 

 comitant difference of function ". The same idea was suggested 

 by Goodsir, and developed in relation to pathology by Virchow. 



(5) METABOLISM OF PROTOPLASM. But even in Schwann's 

 mind the early preoccupation with the cell as such gave place 

 to a proper estimate of the protoplasm itself. Herein the history 

 of physiology shows what Prof. Michael Foster has called " a 

 change of front ". The riddle of life has henceforth to be read, 

 as far as may be, in terms of the chemical changes (metabolism) 

 associated with the living matter. 



Prof. Geddes's short paper emphasizes the parallel 

 evolution of the two sides of biological science, and 

 rationalizes the history as a logically progressive analy- 

 sis. From external form to the internal organs, from 

 organs to the tissues which compose them, from tissues 

 to their elementary units or cells, and from cells to the 

 living matter itself, has been the progress of the science 

 of structure or morphology. From habit and tempera- 

 ment to the work of organs, from the functions of 

 organs to the properties of tissues, from these to the 

 activities of cells, and from these finally to the chemical 

 and physical changes in the living matter or protoplasm, 



