"There is no knowledge so useful to man as knowledge of 

 himself. Health and happiness are promoted by it. Before 

 the advent of the modem scientific spirit, biologic knowledge 

 was required to conform to the dominant superstitions of the 

 time. The human body was regarded as a peculiar and awful 

 thing, and not amendable to the laws which govern the rest 

 of the universe. Then it was found that the mechanics of the 

 body are entirely reconsilable with the principles of physics. 

 Humanity's debt of gratitude is incalculably great to those 

 men who at the risk of their lives and fortunes made dissec- 

 tions of dead bodies of men and animals, and discovered the 

 mechanism of the muscular system which imparts motion to 

 the joints, the valvular and pump-like arrangement of the 

 heart, and the hydraulic principles of the tubes which convey 

 the blood through the body. Then came those students of the 

 secrets of nature who discovered that the same laws which 

 govern man govern the lower and the lowest of creatures ; that 

 between soil and mineral, fluids and gases, plants and animals, 

 there is no dividing line; that the lily is the daughter of the 

 pool, and the man is the brother of the ox. This knowledge 

 was gotten for us, not by the philosopher among his books, 

 but by the patient investigator who went to the heart of 

 nature and studied her secrets." — J. P. Warbasse. 



