PHYSIOLOGY AND THE FOOD PROBLEM 5 



disappeared, and this is only one of many feats 

 on which preventive medicine, the offspring of 

 physiology, may well be congratulated. 



It might be urged that physiology is acting in a 

 presumptuous manner when, as it were, it takes 

 medicine under its wing, and that honour should 

 be given to those to whom honour is due, namely, 

 the medical men in actual practice. All honour 

 certainly to these. Their devotion to duty has 

 made them worthy of the hero's halo. But ad- 

 mitting all that to the uttermost, one cannot over- 

 look the fact that, with some notable exceptions, 

 the^ clinician is not cut out for research or for 

 grappling with the unknown, either on account of his 

 temperament or because his practical work fills his 

 entire day or because the physiology he learnt years 

 ago has been forgotten and replaced by empiricism. 

 The war has brought to light many new manifesta- 

 tions and varieties of disease, from trench feet up 

 to shell shock, and rapid progress and discovery 

 has been the result of this stimulus to the in- 

 vestigator. Progress during the last four years has 

 probably been more rapid than in the previous forty. 

 In a recent leading article in The Times, a very 

 clear statement on the part physiology has played 

 in this progress occurs. It points out that in nearly 

 every instance it has been this science, an example 

 of Bacon's " more exact inquiry," which has formed 

 the mainstay of the knowledge-seekers. 



