470 TRANSACTIONS OV SECTION I. 



Section I.— PHYSIOLOGY. 



Pkesident of the Section: Professor A. P. Cushny, M.A., 

 M.D., F.E.S. 



WBDNESDAY, ^EVTEMUFAi G. 

 The Piejiideul delivered the following Address : — 



Oil the Aiuili/ais of Livin<j Matter thruiKjh ifn Ji'eactioiis (o Pohons. 



I AM told that the chair of Section I has not been held by a pharmacologist 

 for many years, and I wish to express the ple-asure I feel in the honour that 

 has been done me personally, and even more in the recognition vouclisafe<l to 

 one of the yoiuigest handmaidens of medicine. Pharmacology has too often 

 shared the fate of the bat in the fable : when we appeal for support to the 

 clinicians we are told that we represent an experimental science^ while when 

 we attempt to ally ourselves with the physiologists we are sometimes given the 

 cold shoulder as smacking too much of the clinic. As a matter of fact, w-e 

 should have a footing in each camp, oi', rather, in each division of the allied 

 forces. And the more recent successes in the application of pharmacology to 

 diseased conditions are now beginning to gain it a rather grudging recognition 

 from clinicians, while the alliance with the biological sciences is being knit 

 ever more closely. The effect of chemical agents in. the living tissues has 

 assumed a new and sinister aspect since the enemy has resorted to the whole- 

 sale use of poisons against our troops, but I must leave this for the discussion 

 to-morrow. 



I wish to-day to discuss an aspect of pharmacological investigation which has 

 not been adequately recognised even by the pharmacologists themselves and 

 which it is difficult to express in few words. In recent years great advances 

 have been made in the chemical examination of the complex substances which 

 make up the living organism, and still greater harvests are promised from these 

 analytic methods in the future. But our progress so far shows that, while 

 general principles may be reached in this way, the chemistry of the living 

 organ, like the rainbow's end, ever seems as distant as before. And, indeed, 

 it is apparent that the chemistry of each cell, while possessing general resem- 

 blances, must differ in detail as long as the cell is alive. No chemistry dealing 

 in grammes, nor even microchemistry dealing in milligrammes, will help us 

 here. We must devise a technique dealing with millionths to advance towards 

 the living organism. Here I like to think that our work in pharmacology may 

 perhaps contribute its mite; perhaps the action of our drugs and poisons may 

 be regarded as a sort of qualitative chemistry of living matter. For chemical 

 investigation has very often started from the observation of some qualitative 

 reaction, and not infrequently a good many properties of a new substance have 

 been determined long before it has been possible to isolate it completely and 

 to complete its analysis. For example, the substance known now as tryptophane 

 was known to occur in certain substances and not in others long before Hopkins 

 succeeded in presenting it in pure form. And in the same way it may be 

 possible to determine the presence or absence of substances in living tissues, 

 and even some of their properties, through their reaction to chemical reagents, 



