THEORY AND PRACTICE 575 



important fact that not only the foundation, but a large 

 portion of the superstructure, belongs in common to its 

 special latter-day developments. This superstructure of 

 common knowledge, consisting of anatomy, histology, 

 physiology, and pathology, raises the edifice of medical, 

 surgical, and obstetric teaching to a level where it becomes^ 

 safe and reasonable for special developments to begin, 

 and for special culture to be attempted. 



From here, it becomes possible to maintain a common 

 connection between the special after-developments of 

 medicine, surgery, and obstetrics, when the retention of 

 that common connection becomes a matter of the greatest 

 possible value in its practical bearings as a means of 

 permitting the combined focussing of scientific opinion 

 and the formulation of practical designs for the common 

 advantage, thereby also preventing the divorce of 

 specialism from the general partner, to which it was and 

 should ever continue to be attached, and securing the 

 joint advantages of a united progress and oneness of 

 purpose for the general good. Furthermore, from this 

 common level of scientific knowledge, which can be and 

 is attained by many, if not all, for its own sake, a training 

 has necessarily been acquired which goes far to enable the 

 general practitioner and specialist alike to " scale the 

 heights " and " traverse the unknown regions " that lie 

 immediately ahead of the pioneers of science, and its 

 utilitarian companion art, in all directions. 



Thus the cohesion and continuity of scientific and 

 practical progress in the domain of medicine in its widest, 

 deepest, and most exact sense and bearings, is most likely 

 to be secured and perpetuated, if it is recognised that 

 from and to this common basis, or starting-point, all 

 workers, scientific, practical, and dilettanti, must " shape 

 their course" and "make their return," bringing back 

 with them, if haply successful in their efforts, their contri- 

 butions of discovery or invention to the sum of knowledge, 

 ameliorative potentiality, and curative power. 



A word on a plea for the unification and simplification of 

 science, more especially biological science. The tendency 

 displayed throughout the " circle of the sciences," in later 

 times, to expedite its course, consciously or unconsciously,. 



