408 REPORT — 1879. 



physicians find abundance of theories as to the nature and the origin of disease, 

 and of suggestions as to its cure. The only thing which would he of value is what 

 we can scarcely ever get, an accurate observation of what they see and feel. Every 

 fallacy of popular medicine, every solemn medical imposture, is the ghost of some 

 long defunct doctrine of the schools. Therefore, it is that common experience is 

 almost absolutely useless in all practical arts which, without exception, depend for 

 their progress upon the advance of science, that is, upon methodical, continuous 

 and scrupulously accurate observations and experiments. 



Many important advances in the practice of medicine have been gained by 

 direct and intentional experiments instituted with a therapeutical object. Such 

 was the Hunterian operation for aneurism, the process of skin-grafting, and subperios- 

 teal operations, such was the administration of chloroform and the introduction of 

 nitrite of amyl, chloral hydrate, and carbolic acid. Such direct experiments still 

 go on, and among them deserve mention for the skill and the untiring patience 

 with which they were carried out, those investigations upon the action of various 

 drugs upon the secretion of bile for which we are indebted to Professor Rutherford 

 and his coadjutors. Even apparently accidental discoveries were not made acci- 

 dentally. Hundreds of country surgeons must have been familiar with the cow- 

 pox, and have seen examples of the immunity it conferred from the more terrible 

 variola, but he who discovered vaccination was no falsely called practical man. He 

 was a man of science, the friend of Hunter and of Cavendish, an anatomist and 

 natural philosopher. The fruits of Jenner's discovery are spread over the whole 

 earth. This humble village doctor has saved more lives than the most glorious 

 conqueror destroyed, but his name is little honoured, and the only monument to his 

 memory has been banished from association with vulgar kings and skilful homi- 

 cides to an obscure corner of the great city, where his only homage is the health 

 and beauty of the children who play around his statue. 



But after all, it is not so much by direct and immediate contributions to the 

 art of healing that Physiology has vindicated her ancient title of the Institutes of 

 medicine, numerous and important as these contributions have been. It is still 

 more by the scientific spirit which has transformed the empty learning so justly 

 ridiculed by Moliere and Le Sage into the practical efficiency of modern surgery. 

 Let me give an instance of what I mean. The notion of measuring the temperature 

 of the body is simple enough, and the rough observation that in inflammation the 

 temperature is raised had led to the various terms by which it was denoted in 

 ancient medicine, and to numberless theories now happily forgotten. But although 

 the thermometer was well known, and had been applied by many scientific 

 physicians, notably by Be Haen, by Br. John Davy, and by Sir Benjamin Brodie, 

 yet the practical value of the clinical thermometer which now every practitioner 

 carries in his pocket was not understood until the other day. Those only who had 

 been trained in accurate physical and physiological investigations, who had learned 

 the worse than uselessness of ' rough observation,' were able to see the enormous 

 importance of clinical thermometry. This most practical of modern improvements 

 in medicine would never have been dreamt of by ' practical men': we owe it to the 

 scientific training of German laboratories. 



If Physiology is of such great national importance, if the necessity of experi- 

 mental research is so vital to the common national wealth, to agriculture and 

 commerce, to health and well-being, ought not its well-ascertained results to be 

 taught in our common schools, and its prosecution directly encouraged by the 

 State ? 



There is no question of the great importance of children being taught the rudi- 

 mentary laws of health, the bodily evils of dirt and sloth and vice, the excellence of 

 temperance, the danger of the first inroads of disease. Such teaching now broad- 

 cast in many excellent manuals as ' The Personal Care of Health,' by the late Dr. 

 Parkes, and Dr. Bridges" Catechism of Health' is no doubt extremely valuable, 

 and happily is daily mere and more diffused. But when beyond the direct utility 

 of such knowledge, we attempt to make it an intellectual discipline, there are, I 

 conceive, difficulties which will always prevent even elementary physiology from 

 forming an important part of general education. First, there is the practical 



