808 REPORT— 1897. 



And I will be here so bold as to dare to point out that this development of his 

 science must, in the times to come, influence the attitude of the physiologis-t 

 towards the world, and ought to influence the attitude of the world towards him. 

 I imagine that if a plebiscite, limited even to instructed, I might almost say 

 scientific, men, were taken at the present moment, it would be found that the 

 most prevalent conception of physiology is that it is a something which is in some 

 way an appendage to the art of medicine. That physiology is, and always must 

 be, the basis of the science of healing, is so much a truism that I would not venture 

 to repeat it here were it not that some of those enemies, alike to science and 

 humanity, who are at times called anti-vivisectionists, and whose zeal often 

 outrims, not only discretion, but even truth, have quite recently asserted that I think 

 otherwise. Should such a hallucination ever threaten to possess me, I should only 

 have to turn to the little we yet know of the physiology of the nervous system 

 and remind myself how great a help the results of pure physiological curiosity — I 

 repeat the words, pure physiological curiosity, for curiosity is the mother of 

 science — have been, alike to the surgeon and the physician, in the treatment of 

 those in some way most afflicting maladies, the diseases of the nervous system. 

 No, physiology is, and always must be, the basis of the science of healing ; but it is 

 something more. When physiology is dealing with those parts of the body which 

 we call muscular, vascular, glandular tissues and the like, rightly handled she 

 points out the way not only to mend that which is hurt, to repair the damages of 

 bad usage and disease, but so to train the growing tissues and to guide the grown 

 ones as that the best use may be made of them for the purposes of life. She not 

 only heals, she governs and educates. Nor does she do otherwise when she comes 

 to deal with the nervous tissues. Nay, it is the very prerogative of these nervous 

 tissues that their life is above that of all the other tissues, contingent on the envi- 

 ronment and susceptible of education. If increasing knowledge gives us increasing 

 power so to mould a muscular fibre that it shall play to the best the part which it 

 has to play in life, the little knowledge we at present possess gives iisat least much 

 confidence in a coming far greater power over the nerve cell. This is not the place 

 to plunge into the deep waters of the relation which the body bears to the mind ; 

 but this at least stares us in the face, that changes in what we call the body bring 

 about changes in what we call the mind. When we alter the one, we alter the 

 other. If, as the whole past histoi'y of our science leads us to expect, in the coming 

 years a clearer and deeper insight into the nature and conditions of that molecular 

 dance which is to us the material token of nervous action, and a fuller, exacter 

 Icnowledge of the laws which govern the sweep of nervous impulses along fibre and 

 cell, give us wider and directer command oyer the moulding of the growing ner- 

 vous mechanism and the maintenance and regulation of the grown one, then 

 assuredly physiology will take its place as a judge of appeal in questions not only 

 of the body, but of the mind ; it will raise its voice not in the hospital and con^ 

 suiting- room only, but also in the senate and the school. 



One word more. We physiologists are sorely tempted towards self-righteous- 

 ness, for we enjoy that blessedness which comes when men revile you and persecute 

 you and say all manner of evil against you falsely. In the mother-countrj^ our 

 hands are tied by an Act which was defined by one of the highest legal authorities 

 as a 'penal' Act; and though with us, as with others, difficulties may have 

 awakened activity, our science sulTers from the action of the State. And some 

 there ai-e who would go still farther than the State has gone, though that is far, 

 who would take from us even that which we have, and bid us make bricks wholly 

 without straw. To go back is always a hard thing, and we in England can 

 hardly look to any great betterment for at least many years to come. But 

 imless what I have ventured to put before you to-day be a mocking phantasm, 

 unworthy of this great Association and this great occasion, England in this 

 respect at least offers an example to be shunned alike by her offspring and her 

 fellows. 



