CELLS 4ND TISSUES. 23 



In fact, no branch of our science will attempt to solve 

 the new questions presented to it without rich results. 



I have arrived at the end of my paper, the purpose of 

 which was to test the value of the methods of physical 

 chemistry in questions of medicine. Unquestionably 

 they enlarge that territory which the organic and the 

 inorganic world have in common. The last barriers 

 between the two cannot as yet be broken down, how- 

 ever, through the increase in our means of investigation 

 that we are at present enjoying. There always remains 

 an unsolved portion, the kernel, as it were, of vital 

 phenomena. 



The cause of the final failure of the new instruments 

 can rest only in their origin. They have all been evolved 

 from the study of lifeless matter. For a complete under- 

 standing of the living the words of a great physiologist 

 will probably hold: 



" Life can perhaps be completely understood only through 

 lileitselj." 



2. The General Physical Chemistry of the Cells and 

 Tissues.* 



A COMPLETE and ordered understanding of all the func- 

 tions of living matter, independent of its relation to a 

 definite organism or organ, is the final goal of general 

 physiology. Free from a one-sided overestimation of any 

 one system of investigation, it makes use not only of the 

 methods peculiar to biology, but also of those employed 

 in physics and chemistry. The methods of chemistry 

 have attained a special importance in the investigation 



* From Ergebnisse der Physiologic, 1902, I, ite Abth., p. i. 



