THE BIOLOGICAL SCIENCES AND MEDICINE. 357 



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 physiology; ap- 

 pear to me to be the greatest steps which have ever been 

 made towards the establishment of medicine on a scien- 

 tific 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 to 

 which those who occupy themselves with these subjects 

 are trained in the methods and impregnated with the 

 fundamental truths of biology. 



And, in conclusion, I venture to suggest that the col- 

 lective sagacity of this Congress could occupy itself with 

 no more important question than with this : How is 

 medical education to be arranged, so that, without en- 

 tangling the student in those details of the systematist 

 which are valueless to him, he may be enabled to obtain 

 a firm grasp of the great truths respecting animal and 

 vegetable life, without which, notwithstanding all the 

 progress of scientific medicine, he will still find him- 

 self an empiric ? 



THE END. 



