Ill 



PHYSIOLOGY; ITS SCOPE AND METHOD 

 (C. S. SHERRINGTON, D.Sc., LL.D., &c.) 



IN Nature one of those rare places at which there 

 seems, owing perhaps to the imperfection of our know- 

 ledge, a distinct gap in the long chain of creation, lies as 

 a boundary between living things and things without 

 life. Physiology may be described as the study of the 

 working of living things. In this animate field of 

 Nature the physiologist is a student somewhat as the 

 engineer is a student of inanimate machines. The living 

 machine, like those of the engineer, produces work 

 moving itself and things and heat hence our body's 

 warmth and electricity, &c. The living machine wears 

 too as it works, but, more complex than the machines of 

 the engineer, it restores its parts as it works and much 

 of its own labour goes in renewing its own living fabric 

 from suitable dead material which we call food. 



The engineer studies his machines that he may drive 

 them to the best advantage, that he may if they break 

 down repair them, that he may make new ones better 

 than the old. The physiologist in reverent study of 

 the living machine knows no one so well he cannot 

 create another, let alone construct improvements on 

 the old. Yet among his practical aims one is the 



