XIII.] THE BIOLOGICAL SCIENCES AND MEDICINE. 333 



unintelligible, so long as we are ignorant of the nature 

 of these normal activities. In other words, there could 

 be no real science of pathology until the science of 

 physiology had reached a degree of perfection un- 

 attained, and indeed unattainable, until quite recent 

 times. 



So far as medicine is concerned, I am not sure 

 that physiology, such as it was down to the time of 

 Harvey, might as well not have existed. Nay, it 

 is perhaps no exaggeration to say that, within the 

 memory of living men, justly renowned practitioners 

 of medicine and surgery knew less physiology than is 

 now to be learned from the most elementary text-book ; 

 and, beyond a few broad facts, regarded what they did 

 know as of extremely little practical importance. 

 Nor am I disposed to blame them for this conclusion ; 

 physiology must be useless, or worse than useless, to 

 pathology, so long as its fundamental conceptions are 

 erroneous. 



Harvey is often said to be the founder of modern 

 physiology; and there can be no question that the 

 elucidations of the function of the heart, of the nature 

 of the pulse, and of the course of the blood, put forth 

 in the ever-memorable little essay, " De motu cordis," 

 directly worked a revolution in men's views of the 

 nature and of the concatenation of some of the most 

 important physiological processes among the higher 

 animals ; while, indirectly, their influence was perhaps 

 even more remarkable. 



But, though Harvey made this signal and peren- 

 nially important contribution to the physiology of the 



