388 



SCIENTIFIC THOUGHT. 



13. 



The extreme 

 vitalism. 



sentatives of the medical profession considered it 

 unworthy and degrading to treat the human frame 

 as a mechanism, and to approach it by the methods 

 used in other sciences. " For the vitalist physician," 

 says Helmholtz, 1 " the essential part of the vital pro- 

 cesses did not depend on natural forces which act 

 according to fixed laws. What these could do ap- 

 peared of secondary importance, and a study of them 

 hardly worth the trouble. He thought to be face to 

 face with something soul-like," the anima of Stahl, 

 the vital force of the vitalists, " which had to be met 

 by a thinker, a philosopher, a man of spirit. . . . Aus- 

 cultation and percussion were practised in the hos- 

 pitals, 2 but I have heard it said that these were crude 



tificially, we shall probably be able 

 to date from that day an entirely 

 new period in natural science, but 

 this artificial production of albumen 

 will never be feasible through the 

 simple affinities of the elements, 

 but only by producing a new 

 arrangement in organic substances 

 already formed by the plant. We 

 shall gratefully receive all such 

 increase of our knowledge : we do 

 not require wonders and belief in 

 miracles for the vital force, but 

 only a name for the effects of 

 which we do not know the 

 causes. . . . Neither the ancient 

 primaeval ooze nor the modern 

 Bathybius, neither the remote 

 monads nor the recent monera, 

 neither protoplasm, nor nucleus 

 and cell and their development, 

 confessedly so simple and easily 

 understood up to self-conscious 

 man, give us the smallest clue 

 to the forces at work and their 

 origin. This induces us to ascribe 

 them to a force, regarding the 

 essence of which we indeed know 



no more than we know of any 

 cause that cannot be further an- 

 alysed. But we admit in doing 

 so the imperfection of our know- 

 ledge, and do not deceive others 

 by suggesting that mechanical 

 science could solve the secret of 

 organised nature." 



* 'Vortrage und Reden,' vol. ii. 

 p. 179. 



2 Chr. Fried. Nasse (1778-1851), 

 since 1822 professor at Bonn, 

 where, together with Walther. 

 Job. Miiller, and others, he cul- 

 tivated the physiological method 

 in medicine, " was, as it seems, 

 the first German doctor in whose 

 clinical institute physical diagnosis 

 was introduced. From 1820 on- 

 ward percussion was practised ; 

 since 1821 the stethoscope was 

 regarded as an indispensable in- 

 strument " (Haeser, ' Geschichte 

 der Medizin,' 3rd ed., Jena, 1881, 

 p. 91 2). " The thermometer was 

 first used extensively at the bed- 

 side by James Currie (1756-1805). 

 His ' Medical Reports on the effect 



