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NATURE 
[Aug. 4, 1870 
POPULAR PHYSIOLOGY 
What shall we Teach? or, Physiology in Schools. 
Edwin Lankester, M.D., F.R.S., &c.,, &c. 
A School Manual of Health, By Edwin Lankester, 
M.D., F.R.S., &c., &c. (London: Groombridge and 
Son.) 
“THERE is an old saying, “that every man when he 
gets to be forty is his own doctor unless he happens 
to be a fuol ;? by which is meant that the pains and dis- 
comforts of ill health will, in the long run, convince most 
men that some knowledge of the facts of physiology and of 
the laws which govern the human body, is, after all, a 
desirable thing for the comfortable conduct of life. The 
main object of Dr. Lankester’s pamphlet is to urge the 
question, “ Why leave these lessons to chance and the 
fourth decade? Why not steal a march on bitter expe- 
rience, and by making physiology a branch of general 
education, forewarn and forearm everyone against bodily 
indiscretions and against transgressions of sanitary laws?” 
Leaving on one side altogether the value of physiology in 
its scientific aspect as a means of training the mind, and 
taking his stand on the ground simply of the importance 
of it as mere information, the author works out his plea 
with unflagging zeal and energy. Indeed, all the pages 
bear tokens of almost the enthusiasm of a crusade. Into 
town and country, into girls’ schools, boys’ schools, infants’ 
schools and universities, into corporations, vestries, and 
town councils, into tie functions of clergymen, house- 
holders, lawyers, and domestic servants, the flag of physio- 
logy is most gallantly carried ; and we can hardly imagine 
an impressionable general reader finishing the little work 
without at once rushing off to order “ Huxley’s Elementary 
Lessons” and the “ School Manual of Health.” 
For ourselves we are free to confess, that while 
thoroughly sympathising with Dr. Lankester in his 
laments over the contemptible ignorance, and worse than 
ignorance, of mankind in all that relates to their bodies, 
we are not so sanguine as he seems to be touching the 
results of even gencral and extensive physiological 
teaching. We quite feel with him that it is perfectly out- 
rageous that men and women should be so profoundly 
ignorant, as they are, of the nature of that prison-house 
from which they can never escape so long as life lasts, 
that our youth should, under the pretence of training, be 
taught things which they can never see or touch in after- 
life, should be made wise in phantoms and myths, and 
encouraged to put aside all curiosity about the things 
which they carry about with them always everywhere. Is 
it not monstrous that many a lad of eighteen should have 
so vivid a picture in his mind’s eye, of, say, Syracuse 
during the Peleponnesian, war, as to:make people think he 
must{have lived long years in Sicily, while the inside of 
his own body is to him a dim mystery, of which he can 
call up no clear image, but fancies it is some how or other 
more or'less like .a pig’s? “Some day or other men will 
have difficulty in believing that such a state of things 
could possibly have existed, and certainly the longest 
chapter in that great book, De Hominum Erroribus, will 
be the one which deals with the teaching of the young. 
At the same time, we fear thatthe millennium will not be 
very much nearer when every schoolboy knows the pro- 
perties of gastric juice and even vestrymen believe in 
By 
respiration. We have seen too many professors of physio- 
logy lecture on “pepsin” in the morning and rush 
violently into heavy dinners and indigestion in the evening, 
and besides, have had already too much general experience 
in the “meliora probo deteriora seguor,” to feel much 
confidence in the reforming virtues of even the widest 
and most exact information, especially in everything 
relating to eating, drinking, and building houses. Nurse- 
maids will continue to choke children, schoolboys to eat 
green gooseberries, and artizans to block up ventilators, 
in spite of each and all of them bearing certificates of 
proficiency in the knowledge of the laws of life. 
Dr. Lankester’s strongest point is perhaps the negative 
and destructive, rather than the positive and constructive, 
value of sound biological knowledge. Mankind suffer 
not so much from ignorance as from error, not so much 
from lack of knowledge as from the prevalence of false 
notions. The thing which the doctor and the sanitary re- 
former has to struggle against above all other things is 
the pertinacity with which the general public stick to false 
and pernicious theories, and the avidity with which they 
swallow everything which is absurd and ridiculous. Some- 
times the attitude of the public mind towards questions of 
biological science is one of wholesale scepticism, some- 
times of blind superstition ; in all cases they appear as if 
they would rather be guided by any spirit than by that of 
patient inquiry, and of trust in conscientious and careful 
observation and experiment. Their minds are always 
readily tickled by any theory if it be extravagant enough: 
they run rapidly after any sign that is striking enough ; 
but they have no taste for the sober results of sound 
biology. It is not enough to offer them lessons in physi- 
ology. The teacher may, perhaps, by diligence and pa- 
tience at last get them to accept a part of what he teaches, 
but not until he uses his science as an instrument of train- 
ing as well as a source of information. 
And this brings us to the point in which apparently we 
feel obliged to break away altogether from Dr, Lankester. 
We quite agree with him, as we have said, in the immense 
value of physiology as viewed as mere information and 
compared with other kinds of information. But we hold 
very strongly to the opinion that it is training that is 
wanted far more than information. It is a change in the 
eye rather than in the picture towards which we look with 
hope. Beat into the general run of men some little scien- 
tific spirit, teach them how to look at the world around 
them ina scientific manner, how to arrive at scientific 
conclusions, how to approach scientific questions ; put 
them in a proper mood, and they will then perhaps begin 
to become earnest physiologists and sanitary reformers. 
It isa right state of mind, and not a schoolboy’s lesson 
in oxygen, that will tear down the paper pasted over the 
ventilator and otherwise help to lessen the labours of the 
coroner for Middlesex. 
MULLER’S PHYSICS AND METEOROLOGY 
Grundriss der Physik und Meteorologie. Von Dr. John 
Miller. Zehnte Vermehrte und Verbesserte Auflage. 
Mit einem Anhange, Physikalische Aufgaben ent- 
haltend. (Erste Abtheilung. Braunschweig, 1869.) 
T is impossible to disguise or repress the feeling of 
covetousness with which this book of “ Elements of 
