II34 LIFE : OUTLINES OF GENERAL BIOLOGY 



Again, though everyone has "felt the pulse", on wrist and else- 

 where, from earliest physicians onwards, it is something to see this 

 pulse too; and this anyone may observe in the regular oscillation 

 of his suspended foot, when sitting with one knee crossed over the 

 other. Now suppose a straw attached to the shoe, thus every move- 

 ment will be more clearly manifest; and we can next even record 

 this by drawing gently and steadily across the moving tip of the 

 straw a long strip of smoked paper. This simple principle is but 

 refined into the sphygmograph invented within our memory by 

 Mare}^ who thus provided accurate pulse-readings and records, of 

 interest towards a far clearer understanding and comparison 

 of the details of heart-pulsation in health and in disease, than 

 had been reached by feeling the pulse alone. Marey was thus a real 

 initiator, or sub-initiator; and again was followed by later and 

 subtler experimenters and interpreters, of whom the late Sir James 

 Mackenzie may be cited as eminentlj^ productive, and also sug- 

 gestive in his turn. 



Our principle then is becoming plain, that of attaining a clear 

 view of the progress of each and every line of biological (and indeed 

 other scientific) research in terms of its progress and development, 

 from early Precursors to Editor-Initiator, and thence to Continua- 

 tors, at best more or less initiative in their turn. Such arrangement 

 is thus obviously educative for us as scientific workers as well as 

 students; and calculated to inspire all concerned towards critically 

 reviewing that line of progress; and constructively continuing it; 

 even to comparing and co-ordinating this with other lines of advance. 

 Before leaving the physiology of organs, one other eminent name 

 may be mentioned, that of Claude Bernard; and here for his best- 

 known research, that of interpreting the essential functioning 

 of the liver, not to speak of his widely comprehensive grasp 

 and influence throughout physiology a:s a whole. Enough, how- 

 ever, within our present limits, if we see on our shelf for the 

 literature of organs, its general line of development, on the 

 anatomical side from Vesalius, and on the physiological side 

 from Harvey onwards. 



But organs need analysis, hence the significant and initiative 

 work of the brilliant anatomist Bichat, who first clearly gave us the 

 conception that it is not sufficient to know all the particular organs 

 and parts of the body, but to understand these more deeply and 

 yet more simply, e.g. the muscles as so much muscular "tissue", 

 no matter in what particular position, attachment, and use. Simi- 

 larly, beyond tracing particular nerves, we must study nervous 

 tissue; beyond particular glands, glandular tissue; and similarly 

 for bones, as bony tissue; and so on. For here— says Bichat, and now 

 as physiologist— must be sought the secret of their essential func- 

 tioning. This twofold advance in biological thought marks him 



