172 MEDICINE 



and has prevented that intense absorption in a single 

 field of research which leads to complete detachment and 

 isolation of the investigator. Because of this, French 

 physiology, from MAGENDIE through the immortal Claude 

 BERNARD and MAREY to its modern exponents, has always 

 been experimental medicine. Each of these men, while 

 aiming at the elucidation of the normal function of the 

 body, constantly strove to apply his discoveries to the 

 unraveling of their complex disorders. The mention of 

 Claude Bernard's name evokes first of all the thought of 

 diabetes, not of the normal liver function. These men 

 taught as they thought, presenting their subject in its 

 relation to pathology and to clinical medicine, not as 

 something independent and self-sufficient. The earlier 

 chapters of Claude Bernard's "Legons de physiologic ex- 

 perimentale" contain the program of the modern medical 

 clinic, set forth with a cogency and a lucidity which have 

 never been equalled, a program which we are only just 

 beginning to realize. So too PASTEUR, the chemist, with 

 the highest type of scientific imagination, seeing in his 

 discovery of the nature of putrefaction the key which 

 would unlock the door to knowledge of the infectious 

 diseases, and planning the simplest experiments by which 

 he might reach his goal, is kin to the creative artist who, 

 with a few bold lines, draws the picture that will live when 

 mere photographs, with all their wealth of detail, shall 

 have faded into nothingness. 



Closely allied to the insight which grows out of imagina- 

 tion and sympathy is a certain attitude toward reality as a 

 whole, which the French exemplify in their thought as in 

 their medical science. They love life in all its baffling 

 complexity better than abstract formulations. An in- 

 tense desire to see and accurately describe every varied 

 feature of disease in the actual patient has enabled French 

 physicians to detect and record for the first time many 



