136 



SCIENCE 



[Vol. LV, No. 1415 



clinical depai-tments, carried out under the 

 auspices of the National Research Council. 



The statements from the laboratories of the 

 country collected for the purposes of that 

 investigation have been analyzed elsewhere 

 with a view to securing from them the informa- 

 tion relating to the question then in hand. 

 But they contain in addition a wealth of mate- 

 rial bearing on the broader topics of the 

 present status and future prospects of the 

 medical sciences in this country which this 

 pajDer proposes to discuss. From this mate- 

 rial the speaker has drawn freely in developing 

 certain of the phases of his subject; owing to 

 the circumstances of its collection, though, it 

 has not been possible always to indicate to 

 whom credit is due. And finally, it should 

 be added that the views to which espression 

 is given in this address may apply best, possi- 

 bly only, to the branch of science in which 

 the speaker himself works, namely physiology, 

 and with which he consequently has a certain 

 degree of familiarity. He is inclined to be- 

 lieve, though, that they will appl3' to the other 

 medical sciences also; to some rather closely, 

 to others perhaps somewhat more remotely. 



In order to gain a vantage point from 

 which to survey the field of medical science as 

 it has been cultivated in the United States and 

 from which to ascertain the direction in which 

 it is moving, it becomes necessary first to trace 

 in a cursory way the development of the sub- 

 ject from its beginning down to the establish- 

 ment of its modern trend. Contributions to 

 science have been made ever since man 

 acquired the ability to hand on his experiences 

 with nature; but in the ease of medical science, 

 at least, such advances as were made down to 

 the fourteenth century were upon the whole 

 unimportant, and for the most part casual. It 

 should be borne in mind, though, that what- 

 ever of value was then gained formed the basis 

 upon which subsequent advances were built. 

 Every now and then these occurred in rapid 

 sequence through the eiforts often of single 

 individuals or of groups of individuals stimu- 

 lated by an innate desire to ascertain the rela- 

 tion between cause and elfect, and endowed 

 with the genius to see those relations. 



With the revival of learning in Italy sj's- 



tematic studies by the scientific method here 

 and there began to be made of the more ob- 

 vious of the natirral phenomena. The struc- 

 ture of the human body mainly, but occasion- 

 ally its functions also, both normal and ab- 

 normal, collectively then known under the 

 name of anatomy, and the structure of the 

 universe were amongst the first of the prob- 

 lems to be attacked with any degree of suc- 

 cess. At this time, and indeed in one and the 

 same year, there aj)peared the "De revolution- 

 ibus orbus ccelestrum" of Copernicus and the 

 "De corporis humani fabrica libri septem" of 

 Vesalius, the epoch making works in their 

 respective fields; medical science and physical 

 science employing in effect the same methods 

 are here seen advancing together as they have 

 ever since, because of their related habits of 

 thought and their mutual helpfulness. Prog- 

 ress in the experimental phases of medical 

 science, however, was slow. The faint glimmer 

 of light in this direction that became discerni- 

 ble during the Renaissance, in the succeeding 

 four centuries every now and then broke forth 

 momentarily into a brighter flash when some 

 keener intellect such as Hai-vey, Malpighi, 

 Mayow, Boyle, Haller, Hales, SpaUanzani, 

 Hewson, Lavoisier, Wollf, Hunter, Young, 

 Morgagni and others, gentlemen of leisure, 

 clergymen, lawyers, physicians, rarely scien- 

 tists by vocation, compelled by an inborn spirit 

 of inquiry and working for the most part in 

 private laboratories, made brilliant contribu- 

 tions to the slowly and sporadically growing 

 accumulation of medical science. 



Partly in consequence of the rapidly widen- 

 ing confines of knowledge, but especially as a 

 result of the recognition of underlying differ- 

 ences in technical methods, a tendency to 

 separate the functional from the structm'al 

 phases began to develop, the former leading 

 to physiology, the latter retaining the designa- 

 tion, anatomy. At about the same time, a dis- 

 tinction began to be more clearly drawn be- 

 tween the normal and the abnormal, both in 

 structure and in function, and a tendency to 

 appreciate more fully the value of organic 

 chemistry in the study of biological phenomena 

 became obvious; although biological chemistry 

 came to be recognized as a distinct science at a 



