January 10, 1908] 



SCIENCE 



63 



economic and other social sciences and con- 

 ditions, and with the administration of 

 national, state and municipal governments. 

 It is an especial gratification to record the 

 stimulating recognition of these relation- 

 ships by the social and economic section of 

 this association in which was started a year 

 and a half ago a movement for public 

 health, particularlj'^ as related to the federal 

 government, which has already assumed na- 

 tional significance. 



To the marvelous growth of the medical 

 and other sciences of living beings during 

 the past century, and especially in the last 

 fifty years, physics and chemistry and the 

 application of physical and chemical meth- 

 ods of study have contributed directly and 

 indirectly a very large and ever-increasing 

 share. In many instances there is no tell- 

 ing when or where or how some discovery 

 or new invention may prove applicable to 

 medical science or art. Who could have 

 dreamed in 1856 that Sir William Perkin's 

 production of the first aniline dye should 

 be an essential link in the development of 

 modern bacteriology and therefore in the 

 crusade against tuberculosis and other in- 

 fectious diseases? As Robert Koch has 

 said, it would have been quite impossible 

 for him to have developed his methods and 

 made his discoveries without the possession 

 of elective dyes for staining bacteria, and 

 no other class of coloring agents has been 

 discovered which can serve as substitutes 

 for the anilines in this regard. And how 

 much assistance these dyes have rendered 

 to the study of the structure and even the 

 function of cells! If we trace to their 

 source the discovery of Rontgen's rays, 

 which have found their chief practical ap- 

 plication in medicine and surgery, we shall 

 find an illustration scarcely less striking. 



No important generalization in physical 

 science is without its influence, often most 

 important, upon biological conceptions and 

 knowledge. I have already referred to the 



great principles of conservation of mass 

 and of energy which are at the very foun- 

 dation of our understanding of vital phe- 

 nomena. Although we can not now fore- 

 see their bearings, we may be sure that the 

 new theories, regarding the constitution 

 of what has hitherto been called matter, 

 will, as they are further developed, prove 

 of the highest significance to our concep- 

 tions of the organic as well as of the in- 

 organic world. Clerk MaxweU in his 

 article on the atom in the ninth edition of 

 the Encyclopaedia Britannica, on the basis 

 of a computation of the number of mole- 

 cules in the smallest organized particle 

 visible under the microscope, reached a 

 conclusion which he states in these words : 



Molecular science . . . forbids the physiologist 

 from imagining that structural details of infinitely 

 small dimensions can furnish an explanation of 

 the infinite variety which exists in the properties 

 and functions of the most minute organism. 



Larmor, in the tenth edition of the same 

 work in his article on the ether, points out 

 that upon the assumption of either vortex 

 atoms or electric atoms physical science is 

 concerned only with the atmosphere of the 

 atom, that is with the modification im- 

 pressed on the surrounding ether, whereas 

 the nucleus or core of the atom may per- 

 haps be taken into account in the problems 

 of biology, although it would appear that 

 nothing can be known of this nucleus. 

 With still later developments of the dynam- 

 ical hypothesis, which resolves matter 

 into nothing but activity or energy, there 

 are those who thinl? that the hard knot of 

 ages is to be untied and the animate and 

 inanimate worlds come together under a 

 satisfying monistic view of the whole as 

 in essence active energy. 



The ultimate problems of biology reside 

 in the cell. Whatever the future may hold 

 in store, at the present day only a rela- 

 tively small part of these problems are 

 approachable by physical or chemical 



