NATURE 



[May 28, 1896 



exact experimental work in the medical sciences, a few words on 

 this subject will not be out of place. 



Methodical experinienlation in the sciences of nature was 

 definitely established liy Galileo, and was zealously practised by 

 his contemporaries and successors in the seventeenth century. 

 It was greatly promoted by the foundation during this century 

 of learned societies, such as the Accademia dei Lincei and the 

 Accademia del Cimento in Italy, the Collegium Curiosum in 

 Germany, the Academic des Sciences in Paris, and the Royal 

 Society in England. Much of the classical apparatus still 

 employed in physical experiments was invented at this period. 

 Experimental physics from the first acquired a kind of fashion- 

 able vogue, and this aristocratic position it has ever since main- 

 tained among the experimental sciences. These sciences must 

 concede to physics that commanding position which it has won 

 by the genius of the great natural philosophers, by the precision 

 of its methods and the mathematical accuracy of its conclusions, 

 and by the fundamental nature and profound interest and 

 importance of its problems. The deljt of the medical sciences 

 to the great experimental physicists, from Kepler and Galileo 

 and Newton down to Helmholtz, is a very large one, larger than 

 is probably appreciated by medical men who have not interested 

 themselves in the history of experimental and precise methods 

 in medicine. 



There existed in the last century cabinets of physical appa- 

 ratus to be used in demonstrative lectures, but they were very 

 inadequate, and suitable rooms for experimental work scarcely 

 existed. It was not until about the middle of the present cen- 

 tury that we find the beginnings of the modern physical 

 laboratory. Lord Kelvin, then William "Thomson, established 

 a physical laboratory in the University of Glasgow about 1845 

 in an old wine-cellar of a house. He tells us that "this, with 

 the bins swept away, and a water supply and sink added, 

 served as a physical laboratory for several years." It was as 

 late as 1863 that Magnus opened in Berlin his laboratory for 

 experimental physical research. Since 1S70 there has been a 

 rapid development of those splendid physical institutes which 

 are the pride of many universities. 



Humbler but more picturesque was the origin of the chemical 

 laboratory. This was the laboratory of the alchemist searching 

 for the philosopher's stone. In the painter's canvas we can 

 still see the vaulted, cobwebbed room with its dim and mys- 

 terious light, the stuffed serpent, the shelves with their many- 

 coloured bottles, the furnace in the corner with the fire glowing 

 through the loose bricks, the fantastic alembics, the old alchemist 

 in his quaint arm-chair reading a huge, worm-eaten folio, and 

 the assistant grinding at the mortar. Fantastic and futile as it 

 all may seem, yet here was the birth of modern chemistry. The 

 alchemists were the first to undertake the methodical experi- 

 mental investigation of the chemical nature of substances. No 

 more powerful stimulus than the idea of the philosopher's stone 

 could have been devised to impel men to ardent investigation. 

 But search for gold was not all that inspired the later alchemists 

 Paracelsus, the alchemist, that strange but true prophet of 

 modern medicine as he was of modern chemistry, said, " Away 

 with these false disciples who hold that this divine science, 

 which they dishonour and prostitute, has no other end but that 

 of making gold and silver. True alchemy has but one aim and 

 object, to extract the quintessence of things, and to prepare 

 arcana, tinctures, and elixirs which may restore to man the 

 health and soundness he has lost." And again he says of the 

 alchemists, '" They are not given to idleness nor go in a proud 

 habit or plush or velvet garments, often .showing their rings 

 upon their fingers, or wearing swords with silver hilts by their 

 sides, or fine and gay gloves upon their hands, but diligently 

 follow their labours, sweating whole days and nights Iiy their 

 furnaces. They do not spend their time abroad for recreation, 

 but take delight in their laboratory. They wear, leather gar- 

 ments with a pouch and an apron wherewith to wipe their 

 hands. They put their fingers among coals and into clay, not 

 into gold rings." 



During the seventeeth and eighteenth centuries the doctrines 

 and work of the alchemists had profound influence upon medi- 

 cine. Alchemy was not completely overthrown until Lavoisier 

 gave the death-blow to the phlogistic theory of .Stahl. But for 

 a considerable time before Lavoisier introduced the new spirit 

 into chemi.stry, its methods and its problems were gradually 

 approaching those of modern times. It was, however, over 

 thirty years after the tragic death of Lavoisier before the first 

 chemical laboratory in the modern .sense was established. One 



NO. 1387. VOL. 54] 



cannot read without combined feelings of wonder and pity of 

 the incommodious, forlorn, and cramped rooms in which such 

 men as Scheele and Berzelius and Gay-Lussac worked out their 

 memorable discoveries. Liebig has graphically described the 

 difticulties encountered by the student of that day who wished 

 to acquire practical training in chemistry. With some of the 

 apothecaries could be obtained a modicum of practical familiarity 

 with ordinary chemical manipulations, but Sweden and France 

 were the centres for those with higher aspirations. 



It was the memory of his own experiences which led Liebig, 

 immediately after he was appointed )irofessor of chemistry in 

 Giessen in 1824, to set about the establishment of a chemical 

 laboratory. Liebig's laboratory, opened to students and in- 

 vestigators in 1825, is generally stated to be the first modern 

 public scientific laboratory. Although, as we shall see pre- 

 sently, this is not quite correct, it is certain that Liebig's 

 laboratory was the one which had the greatest influence upon 

 the subsequent establishment and organisation not only of 

 chemical laboratories, but of public scientific laboratories in 

 general. Its foundation marks an epoch in the history of 

 science and of scientific education. This laboratory proved to 

 be of great import to medical science, for it was here, and by 

 Liebig, that the foundations of modern physiological chemistry 

 were laid. 



The significance of this memorable laboratory of Liebig is 

 not that it was a beautiful or commodious or well-equipped 

 laboratory, for it possessed none of these attributes — indeed, it 

 is said to have looked like an old stable — but that here was a 

 ]ilace provided with the needed facilities and under competent 

 direction, freely opened to properly prepared students and 

 investigators for experimental work in science. 



The chemical laboratories of to-day are, in general, the best 

 organised and the best supported of scientific laboratories. 



The need of establishing physiological laboratories was 

 recognised several years before the foundation of Liebig's 

 laboratory. The important results to be derived from the 

 application of the experimental method to the study of vital 

 phenomena had been demonstrated first and most signally by 

 Harvey, and after him by many experimenters. The fecundity 

 of exact experimentation by physical and chemical methods 

 applied to the j^henomena of life had been shown by the classical 

 researches of Lavoisier on respiration and animal heat. Magendie 

 had entered upon that remarkable scientific career which entitles 

 him to be regarded as the founder of modern experimental 

 physiology, pathology, and pharmacology. 



In 1812, Gruithuisen, who, after the custom of the times, 

 filled an encyclopjedic chair, being professor in Munich of 

 physics.chemistry, zootomy, anthropology, and later of astronomy, 

 published an article advocating the establishment of physio- 

 logical institutes. In 1823, Purkinje, one of the most dis- 

 tinguished physiologists of this century, accepted the professor- 

 ship of physiology in Breslau, this being the first independent 

 chair of physiology in any German university. In 1824, Purkinje 

 succeeded in establishing a physiological laboratory, which 

 therefore antedates by one year Liebig's chemical laboratory in 

 Giessen, although it cannot be said to have exercised so great an 

 influence upon the organisation of scientific laboratories in general 

 as did the latter. In 1840, Purkinje obtained a separate building 

 for his laboratory. 



With two or three exceptions, all of the separate physiological 

 laboratories worthy of the name have been established since the 

 middle of the present century. Bernard, that prince of experi- 

 menters, worked in a damp, small cellar, one of those wretched 

 Parisian substitutes for a laboratory which he has called "the 

 tombs of scientific investigators." There can be no greater 

 proof of the genius of Bernard than the fact that he was able to 

 make his marvellous discoveries under such obstacles and with 

 such meagre appliances. France was long in supplying her 

 scientific men with adequate laboratory facilities, but no more 

 unbiassed recognition of the value and. significance of the 

 German laboratory system can be found than in the reports 

 of Lorain, in 1868, and of Wurtz, in 1870, based upon personal 

 study of the construction and organisation of German 

 laboratories. 



Of modern physiological laboratories, the one which has 

 exerted the greatest and most fruitful influence is unquestionably 

 that of the late Prof Ludwig in Leipzig. This unequal position it 

 has won by the general plan of its organisation, its admirable 

 equipment, the number and importance of the discoveries there 

 made, its development of exact methods of experimentation, the 



