402 PHYSIOLOGY 



possibly as yet not even an inkling of. The so-called organ physiology, 

 which appears to the teachers of physiology to be so extensive that 

 it can hardly be taught to students of medicine in one year's lectures, 

 is of astonishingly modest assistance to the understanding of the 

 actual processes of disease. For instance, in the present knowledge 

 of the entire section of the diseases of the respiratory tract, physiology 

 has hardly any share. The knowledge of the few physiological prin- 

 ciples which are applied there can be acquired in one hour's instruc- 

 tion. The extensive knowledge in this chapter of pathology is essen- 

 tially of a morphological nature. Do the functions of the involved 

 organs take no part in these pathological processes? Most certainly 

 they do; but we know too little of it, and the clinician passes over 

 the gap with some makeshift mechanical expl anations. The same is true 

 in neurology; in fact, in nearly every chapter of internal medicine. It 

 is impossible to dwell here on the particulars of our subject. What is 

 the result? First-class clinicians employ their brilliant faculties in 

 continually developing the morphology of diseases and their diagno- 

 sis. But treatment? There is either a nihilism pure and simple, or 

 some sort of a symptomatic treatment is carried on with old or new 

 drugs upon a purely empirical basis. Or there is a great deal of loose 

 writing upon diet, air, water, psychotherapy, and the like, and a great 

 deal of semi-popular discussion in international, national, and local 

 meetings and popular prize essays on the best methods of treatment, 

 with a net result of only a very modest actual benefit for the poor 

 patient, who, in addition to his affliction, has now to feel the tight grip 

 of the modern health officer. There is no efficient treatment of 

 internal diseases in any way comparable with the specific surgical 

 treatment of mechanical diseases, no specific quelling, correcting, or 

 curbing of primarily functional disorders. And there never will be 

 such a specific functional therapy before there is a physiology which, 

 like physics, will be only too glad to meet with many exceptions in 

 order to understand properly all the rules by which the energies of 

 all grades of living phenomena are guided. 



