4 WARFARE IN THE HUMAN BODY 



refusal to appeal to such principles, can be seen in almost 

 every branch of scientific work. In private a professor of 

 pathology may, and too often does, pour scorn upon the 

 labours of the physiologist, which looks much as if he 

 believed that the right method of teaching shipbuilding 

 was to study wrecks upon the beach. Again, the physio- 

 logist, aware though he be of the pathologist's failing, 

 is yet apt to take a similar view as regards biology, while 

 the biologist himself, whose work should necessitate an 

 appreciation of all that appertains to all life, completes the 

 vicious circle by ignoring what has been done by students of 

 disease. So much cannot be denied by those even slightly 

 acquainted with scientific, and especially medical, habits of 

 thought. And yet, in spite of this, there are those who 

 know that science cannot be so divided, and that none, who 

 aspires to more than a hodman's work, is properly equipped 

 without a general knowledge of all the sciences related to 

 his own. This may seem a hard saying ; but it proposes 

 no more than should be attainable by those with imagina- 

 tion and intellectual curiosity, and it admits, even pre- 

 supposes, that he must be as ignorant of special details in 

 such sciences as his fellow- workers must be of his own. 



It is by co-ordination of knowledge that advances are 

 made. Yet it is common to sneer at the very word " co- 

 ordination." It may be true that the solitary pioneer, or 

 specialist, not seldom hits upon precious facts. But he 

 more often shares the fate of the ignorant prospector who, 

 by ignoring geology, wastes his labour and dies in a wilder- 

 ness where no gold can be found. The proper method for 

 any scientific man is to employ all knowledge whatsoever, 

 in order to attain such a degree of insight into the value 

 of others' observations as well as his own as to be able to 

 use and test both. To grasp general conclusions in what 



