Vlll PREFACE. 



complete example of rational therapeutics based on experi- 

 mental pathological and pharmacological data. Magendie's 

 application of strychnine in paralysis and Eraser and Argyll- 

 Eobertson's use of Calabar bean for ophthalmological purposes 

 preceded it, but, in both instances, whilst the action of the drug 

 employed was ascertained by experiment it was used to combat 

 a symptom and not a definite pathological condition which had 

 also been ascertained by experiment. 



After a year in hospital I went to Vienna and worked for 

 some months in Professor Brucke's laboratory on the action of 

 digitalis upon muscle and nerve, but the experiments I made 

 were never published. I then went to Berlin for a short time 

 and took the opportunity of working with what I believe to 

 have been the identical instrument employed by Traube in his 

 researches. In my work on digitalis I felt deeply the want 

 of a registering hsemodynamometer (vide p. 52), but in spite 

 of the want I obtained proofs that digitalis both increases the 

 force of the heart (p. 52) and causes contraction of the 

 capillaries (pp. 55 and 56). Traube* ascribed the rise in blood 

 pressure produced by digitalis entirely to changes in the action 

 of the heart, and he left alterations in peripheral resistance 

 altogether out of account, while they appeared to me to be 

 a most important factor. I was very anxious to obtain 

 confirmatory evidence of my view that digitalis contracts the 

 peripheral vessels, and by means of the kymographion I 

 succeeded, in conjunction with A. B. Meyer, in obtaining this 

 evidence and thus establishing the view of the action of 

 digitalis (p. 145) which is now almost universally accepted. 



Erom Berlin I went for a tour to Egypt, Syria, and the 

 South of Europe, and the next winter (1868 to 1869) I spent 

 in Amsterdam, studying physiological chemistry with Professor 

 Kiihne, a man of marvellous ability and far in advance of his 

 time. The knowledge which I gained from him enabled me to 

 write the section on Digestion and Sec<retion for Burden 

 Sanderson's Handbook for the Physiological Laboratory. 



I then went to Leipzig, and was fortunate enough to be 

 admitted by my beloved and venerated Master, Carl Ludwig, as 



* Traube, op. cit. 



