808 REPORT— 1901. 



Section I. — PHYSIOLOGY (including ExPEraMENTAL Pathology and 

 Experimental Psychology), 



Pbesibent of the Section— Professor John G, McKendeick, M.D., LL.D., 



F.II.S. 



THURSDAY, SEPTEMBER 12. 

 The President delivered the following Address : — 



When the British Association met in Glasgow twenty-five years ago I had 

 the honour of presiding over Physiology, which was then only a sub-section of 

 Section D. The progress of tbe science during the quarter of a century has been 

 such as to entitle it to the dignity of a Section of its own, and I feel it to be a 

 great honour to be again put in charge of the subject. While twenty-five years 

 form a considerable portion of the life of a man, from some points of view they 

 constitute only a short period in the life of a science. But just as the growth 

 of an organism does not always proceed at tbe same rate, so is it with the growth 

 of a science. There are times when the application of new methods or the pro- 

 mulgation of a new theory causes rapid development, and there are other times 

 when progress seems to be slow. But even in these quiet periods there may bo 

 steady progress in the accumulation of facts, and in the critical survey of old 

 questions from newer points of view. So far as physiology is concerned, the last 

 quarter of a century has been singularly fruitful, not merely in the gathering in 

 of accurate data by scientific methods of research, but in the way of getting a 

 deeper insight into many of the problems of life. Thus our knowledge of the 

 phenomena of muscular contraction, of the changes in the secreting cell, of the 

 interdependence of organs illustrated by what we now speak of as internal secre- 

 tion of the events that occur in the fecundated ovum and in the actively growing 

 cell, of the remarkable processes connected with the activity of an electrical 

 oro-an and of the physiological anatomy of the central nervous organs, is very 

 different from what it was twenty-five years ago. Our knowledge is now more 

 accurate, it goes deeper into the subject, and it has more of the character of 

 scientific truth. For a long period the generalisations of physiology were so 

 vao-ue, and apparently so much of the nature of more or less happy guesses, that 

 our brethren the physicists and chemists scarcely admitted the subject into the 

 circle of the sciences. Even now we are sometimes reproached with our inability 

 to give a complete solution of a physiological problem, such as, for example, what 

 happens in a muscle when it contracts ; and not long ago physiologists were 

 taunted by the remark that the average duration of a physiological theory was 

 about three years. But this view of the matter can only be entertained by those 

 who know very little about the science. They do not form a just conception of 

 the difficulties that surround all physiological investigation, difficulties far tran- 

 scending those relating to research in dead matter ; nor do they recollect that 

 many of the more common phenomena of dead matter are still inadequately 



