ON THOUGHT IN MEDICINE. 219 



investigation which a physician with a clear mental 

 vision did not need ; and it indeed lowered and debased 

 the patient, who was anyhow a human being, by treat- 

 ing him as a machine. To feel the pulse seemed the 

 most direct method of learning the mode of action of 

 the vital force, and it was practised, therefore, as by far 

 the most important means of investigation. To count 

 with a repeater was quite usual, but seemed to the 

 old gentlemen as a method not quite in good taste. 

 There was, as yet, no idea of measuring temperature in 

 cases of disease. In reference to the ophthalmoscope, a 

 celebrated surgical colleague said to me that he would 

 never use the instrument, it was too dangerous to admit 

 crude light into diseased eyes ; another said the mirror 

 might be useful for physicians with bad eyes, his, how- 

 ever, were good, and he did not need it. 



A professor of physiology of that time, celebrated 

 for his literary activity, and noted as an orator and 

 intelligent man, had a dispute on the images in the eye 

 with his colleague the physicist. The latter challenged 

 the physiologist to visit him and witness the experi- 

 ment. The physiologist, however, refused his request 

 with indignation ; alleging that a physiologist had 

 nothing to do with experiments ; they were of no good 

 but for the physicist. Another aged and learned pro- 

 fessor of therapeutics, who occupied himself much with 

 the reorganisation of the Universities, was urgent willi 



