SECTION T.— PHYSIOLOGY. 



PHYSIOLOGY THE BASIS OF 

 TREATMENT. 



ADDRESS BY 



PKOF. W. E. DIXON, M.A., M.D., F.E.S., 



PRESIDENT OF THE SECTION. 



The ultimate aim of medicine is the prevention or cure of disease : this 

 practical aspect so far dominates all others that it is often referred to as 

 the healing art ; indeed, it is difficult to think of medicine apart from 

 treatment. 



The term ' physiology ' is usually used to designate the science of 

 function, whether it is studied in broad outline and dealing with the 

 mechanism of action or as the physico-chemical mechanisms leading up 

 to this action. Disease means the unusual functioning of tissues which 

 may be the result of accident, hereditary weakness, or parasitic organisms. 

 Generally it is wrong to speak of this as malfunctioning : the unusual 

 functioning is physiological and perhaps the best for the organism under 

 the unusual conditions. The science of medicine then is nothing more 

 than trained and organised common sense based on physiology. It is 

 still usual to speak of it as an inexact science ; this is obviously wrong 

 since medicine uses the same methods as every other science and the 

 results of observation are as definite as those of the chemist or physicist, 

 although it is true that in the complexity of the problem with which the 

 physician may have to deal all the conditions of importance may not be 

 known and the results of an investigation though correct for the conditions 

 under which it is undertaken may be misleading. 



But it is not with medicine as a whole that I wish to direct your 

 attention to-day, but only with that part of physiology which forms the 

 basis of treatment. 



When the sciences of physiology and pathology a century ago passed 

 from the realms of natural history to deduction and experiment, they 

 naturally attracted the more original and eager minds in medicines, and 

 the text of the writings of the nineteenth century deals with changes in . 

 structure and function. Treatment became neglected, the old shibboleths 

 and rituals of treatment which had held sway for centuries were discarded, 

 and there was nothing with which to replace them. In the middle of 

 the last century S. Skoda and K. Rokitansky (in Austria) perfected a 

 system of physical diagnosis which has had a practical bearing on medicine 

 ever since. Skoda made many experiments with drugs on the patient 

 without any expectation of producing benefit ; the patients were not 

 improved and Skoda thought it mattered little how the patient was 

 treated. It is right to say, however, that these experiments were 

 deficient in many respects according to modern views. At this period 



