FOREWORD 



The following pages are the result of the writer's indulgence in 

 biography as a recreation. The title Pathfinders is presumed to 

 describe the contents. The biographical essay, it is hoped, will be the 

 tribute of a stone to the cairn of those who have blazed the trail of 

 discovery in a domain that has meant so much to scientific medicine, 

 for ''Destiny reserves for man repose enough." The writer of bio- 

 graphy, in his self-appointed task fills a role similar to that of Old 

 Mortality in Scott's well-known novel who visited the graves 

 of the departed and renewed the moss-covered inscriptions on 

 their gravestones. The chapters which constitute this volume 

 have already appeared in the Detroit Medical Journal and are 

 reprinted here with slight alteration. There is no pretense towards 

 a complete history of physiology; far from it. Hence, while the 

 courteous reader will give the writer credit for having read, the criti- 

 cal reader will discover, perhaps, a great deal that he has either over- 

 looked or failed to read. The subject itself abounds with interest; 

 regarding the manner of its presentation, perhaps, not so much may 

 be said. An endeavor has been made to present as much of the hu- 

 man element as available data has permitted. Though the real life 

 of every great man lies in the story of his achievement, rather than 

 in the tale of how he passed his days, yet the human touches find re- 

 sponse in the mind of man. "I have remarked," said Carlyle, "that a 

 true delineation of the smallest man and his scene of pilgrimmage 

 through life is capable of interesting the greatest man; each man's 

 life is a strange emblem of every man's and human portraits faith- 

 fully drawn are of all pictures the welcomest on human walls." 



The reader of the history of medicine cannot but be impressed by 

 the cosmopolitan nature of the science. National lines are unknown, 

 for thoughtful men of every clime have contributed to its progress. 

 Its beginnings are enveloped in the mazes of ancient superstition, 

 where here and there its fitful light gleamed forth to be succeeded 

 by long centuries of Cimmerian darkness. Owing to veneration for 

 the work of such men as Galen, to the sacredness with which the 



