TO PHYSIOLOGY AND PATHOLOGY. 45 



this object, but it is necessary to the investigation of the laws of the relations in 

 which the composition and form of nutrition, or of the secretions stand to the 

 nutritive process ; or the composition of remedial agents to the effects which they 

 exercise upon the organism. 



ANATOMY MOST ESSENTIAL. 



It is certain that all advances of the physiology of plants and animals, from the 

 age of Aristotle to the most recent times, have been facilitated by the progress made 

 in the study of anatomy. As he must remain in the dark concerning distillation, 

 who has seen nothing connected with the process but the still, the fire, and the 

 worm, from whence the spirit flows, so will it be impossible to gain an insight into 

 any process without a correct knowledge of the apparatus used. How much more, 

 then, is this the case with the human organism, which is a complex apparatus, 

 requiring a most accurate knowledge of the structure of individual parts before one 

 can venture to form a judgment of the signification of the functions of the whole. 

 (Shleiden.) 



We must not, however, forget that anatomy alone, from the days of Aristotle to 

 Leuwenhoek's time, has thrown but a partial light upon the laws of the phenomena 

 of life, as the knowledge of the apparatus of distillation does not instruct us alone 

 concerning its uses ; so in many processes, as in distillation, he who understands 

 the nature of fire, the laws of the diffusion of heat, and of evaporation, the con- 

 struction of the still, and the products of distillation, knows infinitely more of the 

 process of distillation than the smith himself who made the apparatus. Each new 

 discovery in anatomy has added acuteness, exactitude, and extent to its descriptions ; 

 unwearied investigation has almost penetrated to the inmost cell, from whence a 

 new road of inquiry must be opened. 



ANATOMY NOT ALONE SUFFICIENT. 



If, however, as many think, the further advance of physiology is alone depen- 

 dent upon the perfecting of our knowledge of the anatomical structure of organisms, 

 chemistry can then in no way assist physiology, since its department is not to con- 

 sider the form, but to establish the condition and relations of forms to their 

 elements, and their methods of arrangement. 



By a knowledge of the anatomical structure and relations of the body, anatomy 

 alone is aided, and even by the most accurate investigation into the phenomena of 

 motion in bodies, we shall never learn anything concerning the reasons and laws 

 which gcfvern them. An acquaintance with the mode and direction of motion can 

 alone contribute to our knowledge. 



WHAT MUST BE SUPERADDED. 



If anatomical knowledge is to serve for the solution of a physiological question, 

 something else must necessarily be added ; and the first thing, surely is to inves- 

 tigate the matter from which this form was made, the forces and properties co-ope- 

 rating with those of life, and the knowledge of the origin of matter and of the changes 

 which are experienced, before those relations can be learnt, in which all consti- 

 tuents of the organism, the fluid as well as the solid, stand to each other. Many 

 physiologists deem that the important questions which chemistry has solved upon 

 this subject, only enrich herself, although all these results take as low and subor- 

 dinate a place in chemistry as those that have been acquired by the analysis of 

 minerals and mineral waters. 



CHEMISTRY ALONE IS NOT SUFFICIENT. 



Another fundamental error entertained by others is, that one may attain to an 

 explanation of vital phenomena by chemical and physical forces alone, or in com- 

 bination with anatomy ; it is, indeed, scarcely to be supposed that the chemist 

 should be able merely by the knowledge of chemical forces to explain the existence 

 in the living body of new laws and new causes, or that the physiologist, setting 



