I.— PHYSIOLOGY. 153 



operations, or indeed take any steps in diagnosis, prognosis or treatment, 

 without utilising at every turn knowledge derived from the results of 

 animal experimentation and obtainable in no other way. And every 

 medical man, even those few who for various reasons prefer the publicity 

 of an antivivisection platform to the obscurity to which they are properly 

 entitled, knows these things perfectly well, and if he practises, acts upon 

 them every day of his life. 



Another useful application of physiological knowledge is that of the 

 science of ventilation, including the use of mine rescue apparatus, which 

 began to take shape during the eighteenth century in the hands of Stephen 

 Hales, while a little later Joseph Black, a professor, be it noted, of medicine 

 and chemistry in this ancient University of Glasgow, discovered carbon 

 dioxide, and Priestley oxygen. The use of submarines, of oxygen sets 

 for aviators and mountaineers, of gas respirators and caissons, and the 

 means for the scientific study of industrial fatigue and of athletic per- 

 formances, have all descended as practical outcomes of this respiratory 

 physiology. 



To take another example in more recent times one may mention 

 Joseph Lister, a cherished link between University College, London, and 

 the University of Glasgow, that indefatigable experimenter who made as 

 valuable contributions to physiological knowledge as to surgery. The 

 revolution in surgical technique which we owe to his largely physiological 

 investigations is as striking as the changes in the outlook of medicine 

 introduced by Harvey. Erichsen, a teacher of Lister, had said not long 

 before that operative surgery had reached the limit of its perfection and 

 that the surgeon's knife would never safely penetrate such parts as the 

 brain, chest or abdomen. 



The subject of pharmacology is very closely connected with physiology 

 on the one hand and therapeutics on the other. As a branch of physio- 

 logical work it has the highest scientific as well as practical importance ; 

 for the study of the mode of action of drugs by providing a means of 

 studying the effect of definite chemical alterations in the environment on 

 the reactions of the living cells cannot fail to serve as a powerful instrument 

 of physiological research. Rational therapeutics, based on the results of 

 pharmacological study, also will carry into the wards the spirit of true 

 scientific investigation, and the provision of beds in some hospitals for the 

 use of the Professor of Therapeutics is an indication that definite progress 

 is being made in this direction. Such an advance has not come before 

 it is needed. If the medical practitioner is to compete successfully with 

 osteopaths, chiropractors and other similar unqualified persons, he is 

 most likely to do so by only prescribing treatment with proper scientific 

 basis. He should be able to form some opinion with regard to the claims 

 of advertisers of remedies who contribute so large a share towards his 

 daily mail deliveries, and many of whom would be unable to exist were 

 it not for the fact that the average doctor is often as easily deceived with 

 their pseudo-scientific puff as any layman. 



If physiology may with pride point to the way in which it has con- 

 tributed to the development of medicine, surgery, hygiene, and veterinary 

 science, it must with gratitude acknowledge that its inspiration has largely 

 come from them too. A clinical friend of mine has written that 



