348 THE BIOLOGICAL SCIENCES AND MEDICINE. [LECT. 



ideal of Descartes than is to be derived from a com- 

 parison of the state of pharmacology, at the present 

 day, with that which existed forty years ago. If we 

 consider the knowledge positively acquired, in this 

 short time, of the modus operandi of urari, of atropia, 

 of physostigmin, of veratria, of casca, of strychnia, of 

 bromide of potassium, of phosphorus, there can surely 

 be no ground for doubting that, sooner or later, the 

 pharmacologist will supply the physician with the 

 means of affecting, in any desired sense, the functions 

 of any physiological element of the body. It will, in 

 short, become possible to introduce into the economy 

 a molecular mechanism which, like a very cunningly- 

 contrived torpedo, shall find its way to some particular 

 group of living elements, and cause an explosion 

 among them, leaving the rest untouched. 



The search for the explanation of diseased states 

 in modified cell-life ; the discovery of the important 

 part played by parasitic organisms in the aetiology of 

 disease ; the elucidation of the action of medicaments 

 by the methods and the data of experimental physio- 

 logy ; appear to me to be the greatest steps which 

 have ever been made towards the establishment of 

 medicine on a scientific basis. I need hardly say they 

 could not have been made except for the advance of 

 normal biology. 



There can be no question, then, as to the nature or 

 the value of the connection between medicine and the 

 biological sciences. There can be no doubt that the 

 future of pathology and of therapeutics, and, therefore, 

 that of practical medicine, depends upon the extent 



