418 PHYSIOLOGY 



adopted in physiology. I am not concerned at present, however, with 

 the attempt to estimate justly the relative influence of these great men 

 and their pupils; the simple point that I wish to insist upon is that 

 they established physiology as an experimental science, and pointed 

 out that its most intimate relationship must be with the other ex- 

 perimental sciences of physics and chemistry. Physiology, said Ber- 

 nard, is not a natural but an experimental science, and most recent 

 writers have defined the subject as consisting essentially of the phys- 

 ics and chemistry of living matter. The two results spoken of above 

 have followed as an inevitable outcome of this course of develop- 

 ment. As an independent science, with specific problems of its own, 

 physiology has naturally loosened its connections with the art of 

 medicine. Formerly one of the handmaids of the noble art, it has 

 been freed in a measure from this servitude, and although its results 

 must always be of the greatest importance to the scientific side of 

 medicine, it can no longer be expected to devote itself mainly to 

 the immediate needs of the physician. The practical problems of 

 medicine that can be studied by physiological methods have been 

 undertaken less and less frequently by the physiologist proper; they 

 have fallen to the hands of the pathologist and the clinician. Physi- 

 ology does its part in this work by giving to such men the needful 

 technique and training which have been developed by the study of 

 its own problems, and the results obtained redound no less to the 

 credit of physiology because the investigator concerned happens to 

 be classified as a pathologist or clinician. All of the sciences are 

 characterized by this mutual helpfulness; the methods and stand- 

 points developed in one frequently give essential aid to the workers 

 in a related science; and the full outcome of the labors of the nar- 

 row specialist cannot be justly estimated by the immediate results 

 in his own department. The physiologist proper, the specialist in 

 physiology, must devote himself to the peculiar problems of his 

 own subject. It cannot be otherwise, for who else is to attempt the 

 solution of these problems ? The practical interests of such work to 

 medicine may seem to be remote, but it is hardly necessary to repeat 

 the often-quoted injunction, founded upon past experience, that the 

 solution of a special problem of a fundamental nature carries with 

 it in the long run the most important practical results. The state 

 of affairs in physiology is exactly similar to what has long been 

 recognized as proper and natural in chemistry and physics. The 

 chemical problems of practical medicine are not solved by the 

 chemist, scarcely indeed by the physiological chemist. But those 

 who undertake these problems avail themselves to the fullest of the 

 knowledge and methods of chemistry, and without this aid their 

 work would be impossible. In the same way physiology will continu- 

 ally aid in the immediate practical work of medicine, although those 



