I.— PHYSIOLOGY. 155 



held in chemistry, zoology, anatomy (and physiology), and on various 

 clinical subjects. 



Jumping forward now about forty years to 1867, we find the curriculum 

 has expanded very much. First, there came the influence of Liebig and 

 chemistry, and by about 1850 or 1860 we find chemistry, mostly inorganic, 

 a regular requirement by all licensing bodies. A chemical laboratory was 

 first constructed at St. Bartholomew's for instance in 1866. The University 

 of London now required at a pre-clinical examination a knowledge of 

 chemistry, botany, natural philosophy, anatomy, organic chemistry, 

 physiology and materia medica. A contemporary writer gives an account 

 of the students of this period from which it appears that the medical 

 student has since changed more in appearance than in ways, for he says 

 that the principal aim of some of them was preservation of their glossy 

 hats and exquisite coat-tails, gloves and sticks, while the throwing of 

 paper balls was already an established tradition among them. 



Although lectures on physiology are mentioned at this time, there was 

 no separate Chair of Physiology in England until 1874, when Sharpey, who 

 had been Professor of Anatomy and Physiology at University College, was 

 succeeded by Burdon Sanderson as the first Professor of Physiology. The 

 first practical classes in Physiology were held there by a pupil of Sharpey, 

 Michael Foster, and consisted of histology, experimental physiology and 

 rudimentary physiological chemistry. To quote Foster's own words, 

 ' What could be done then was very, very little. I had a very small room. 

 I had a few microscopes. But I began to carry out the instruction in a 

 more systematic manner than had been done before. For instance, I 

 made the men prepare the tissues for themselves. That was a new thing 

 in histology. And I also made them do for themselves simple experiments 

 on muscles and nerves and other tissues in live animals. That, I may say, 

 was the beginning of the teaching of practical physiology in England.' 



We realise from these dates that Physiology in Britain had fallen very 

 far behind when compared with the Continent, for Ludwig, in Germany, 

 who obtained a separate Chair of Physiology in 1865, and Claude Bernard 

 in France, had raised the subject to a high level by the time that Physiology 

 in England was being reborn, through the activities of Sharpey and his 

 pupils Foster and Burdon Sanderson. 



The teaching of physiology is, very properly, largely influenced by 

 contemporary research work, and the exact matter taught must, therefore, 

 be expected gradually to undergo change as the focus of research interests 

 shifts. 



It was only natural that the new English physiology should receive the 

 stamp of the men who recreated it, and that histology through Sharpey, 

 and nerve-muscle physiology through the influence of Burdon Sanderson, 

 should occupy a prominent place. For about thirty years in fact the nerve- 

 muscle physiology threatened to eclipse all other branches of experimental 

 work, and it was this flight into questions which appeared to be chiefly 

 of academic interest which was, I think, largely responsible for the regret- 

 table estrangement between the newly liberated science and its parent 

 subject of medicine which marked that period of its development, and of 

 which traces still linger to this day in some of the more elderly repre- 

 sentatives of both subjects. At the present day we must admit that the 



