1 



HOW THE GLANDS WERE DISCOVERED 37 



dently of the fact that Nature, as an experimenter and a vivi- 

 sector, can beat the physiologist to a frazzle. Indeed, he begins 

 like this: "If Pathology be to disease what Physiology is to 

 health, it appears reasonable to conclude that, in any given struc- 

 ture or organ, the laws of the former will be as fixed and sig- 

 nificant as those of the latter: and that the peculiar characters 

 of any structure or organ may be as certainly recognized in the 

 phenomena of disease as in the phenomena of health. Although 

 pathology, therefore, as a branch of medical science, is neces- 

 sarily founded on physiology, questions may nevertheless arise 

 regarding the true character of a structure or organ, to which 

 occasionally the pathologist may be able to return a more 

 satisfactory and decisive reply than the physiologist — these two 

 branches of medical knowledge being thus found mutually to 

 advance and illustrate each other. Indeed, as regards the func- 

 tions of individual organs, the mutual aids of these two branches 

 of knowledge are probably much more nearly balanced than 

 many may be disposed to admit: for in estimating them we 

 are very apt to forget how large an amount of our present physi- 

 ological knowledge respecting the functions of these organs has 

 been the immediate result of casual observations made on the 

 effects of disease." William James expressed the same thought 

 some decades later, when he emphasized that the abnormal was 

 but the normal exaggerated and magnified, played upon by the 

 limelight, and therefore the best teacher and indicator of the 

 exact definition and limitations of the normal. 



Addison, speaking before the South London Medical Society 

 in 1849, declared that in all of three afflicted individuals there 

 was found a diseased condition of the suprarenal capsules, and 

 that in spite of the consciousness "of the bias and prejudice in- 

 separable from the hope or vanity of an original discovery . . . 

 he could not help entertaining a very strong impression that 

 these hitherto mysterious organs — the suprarenal capsules — may 

 be either directly or indirectly concerned in sanguification (the 

 making of the blood) : and that a diseased condition of them, 

 functional or structural, may interfere with the proper elabora- 

 tion of the body generally, or of the red particles more 

 especially. , ," A modern, acquainted with after developments, 

 would say that Addison was very hot upon the trail indeed. But 

 withal, though he must have been well aware of John Hunter's 

 advice to Jenner on vaccination, "Don't think, make some ob- 



