156 SECTIONAL ADDRESSES. 



knowledge gathered by those of our predecessors who worked at the 

 physiology of muscle and nerve has proved of great value in directing 

 physiological inquiry along scientific lines, from which the science of 

 medicine has profited as much as physiology itself. The interesting 

 revival of the study of the same subjects by more accurate methods 

 within the past few years has further enriched our insight into the 

 fundamental phenomena of life and vindicated the opinions of our 

 predecessors as to the value of such investigations. 



The development of physiological chemistry, now often called bio- 

 chemistry, in this country was largely due to the influence of Prof. W. D. 

 Halliburton, whose ' Chemical Physiology and Pathology ' was for many 

 years the only comprehensive English textbook on the subject. The 

 growing importance of organic chemistry led to its introduction into the 

 medical curriculum, in connexion with biological chemistry, and in 

 recent years the similar position of physical chemistry has led to its 

 inclusion in some form or other in the curriculum of most medical schools. 



Whereas in the sixties the student's chief study was anatomy with 

 some botany and chemistry, there have now grown up as special courses 

 of instruction, each with its professor or other specialised teacher, courses 

 in the preliminary sciences and in anatomy, neurology, histology, 

 embryology, organic chemistry, physical chemistry, physiology, experi- 

 mental physiology and biochemistry, with pharmacology often thrown 

 in as a makeweight to fill up any spare time the student may have left. 

 Sometimes even special courses of human physiology are added. Here is 

 the great dilemma of the medical curriculum : with all these special 

 departments, each urging that its subject is of prime importance in the 

 course, how can the poor student rightly direct his steps, and be enabled 

 to see the wood for the trees 1 Yet, so great is the expansion in each of 

 these subjects, that unless some at least of them are dealt with by specialists 

 the student's instruction will unquestionably be obsolete in parts. 



The solution to the difficulty lies, in my opinion, in two directions : 

 first in the extensive modification of the present system of examinations, 

 and secondly in the exercise of a sympathetic understanding on the part 

 of specialist teachers of the difficulties of the student and a proper 

 perspective of the relation of his own subject to the requirements of the 

 curriculum as a whole. We have a sacred trust : it is the duty of those 

 of us who are teachers of physiology to hand on to our successors, not the 

 science as we inherited it, but a science which we and our contemporaries 

 have ourselves improved and enriched to the best of our ability. 



Out of the multitudinous and tumultuous activities of scientific labour 

 new principles gradually emerge, and the truth appears in a constantly 

 changing garb. As I have said before, research reflects itself in teaching, 

 and it is accordingly necessary that teaching should be reviewed from time 

 to time, that new matter be introduced in so far as it is of general 

 importance, and old matter rejected as soon as its immediate value 

 diminishes. I should very much like, for similar reasons, to see profound 

 alterations in the teaching of chemistry, both inorganic and organic, to 

 medical students. 



It is. in my opinion, quite impossible, and perhaps undesirable, at the 

 present time to frame instruction in physiology so as adequately to equip 



