SECTION I.— PHYSIOLOGY. 



THE DEVELOPMENT OF HUMAN 

 PHYSIOLOGY. 



ADDRESS BY 



C. G. DOUGLAS, C.M.G., M.C., D.M., F.R.S., 



PRESIDENT OF THE SECTION. 



In physiology our task is to study the nature of the phenomena which 

 characterise normal life, as shown in the individual organism. At the 

 outset it would perhaps seem presumption on our part to turn our attention 

 to what we must admit to be the most complicated and highly developed 

 organism, namely, man, before we have been able to elucidate at least 

 the main' features of the life-process of more lowly forms ; should we not 

 do better to argue from the simple to the complex ? Yet I suppose that 

 man has always been curious about himself, his functions and existence, 

 and nothing is likely in the future to lessen this curiosity. It is no matter 

 for wonder, therefore, that the early history of physiology is bound up 

 with the development of medicine, and that those whose daily life neces 

 sarilv brought them into continual association with health and disease, 

 and with life and death, should be among the first to turn their attention 

 to the investigation of the nature of living processes. 



It is not, however, of the early days of physiology that I propose to 

 speak. The progress made in the biological and physical branches of 

 natural science has been amazingly rapid in recent years, and I want to 

 try to reach some estimate as to the value of human physiology in the 

 development of modern physiological thought. 



In the last fifty years we have seen the wide extension of what I may 

 term the analytical method of physiological investigation, the attempt to 

 differentiate the various components in the complex system which we call 

 life, and to study in detail each of these components in turn and to render 

 clear the phenomena peculiar to each. The organism is in this method 

 treated as a series of systems— we speak, for instance, of the nervous system, 

 the circulatory, the respiratory and the excretory systems— which, though 

 no doubt but parts of a whole, are yet capable of being treated within 

 limits as independent. In pursuing this method we have a perfectly 

 definite aim, for we are trying to establish elementary facts about the 

 different parts of the body without some knowledge of which we feel, 

 and feel rightly, that a general conception of the whole is impossible. No 

 one can deny that we have acquired in this way a mass of information 

 which is essential to the whole study of physiology, nor is there any reason 

 to suppose that the future will witness any diminution either in number 

 or importance of the contributions thus made to knowledge. 



