608 
wide field open to them prodded, so to speak, 
among all living things, indifferent whether 
they possessed a backbone or no. But it 
soon became obvious that the study of the 
special problems of the more highly organ- 
ized creature was more fruitful, or at least 
more easily fruitful, than that of the general 
problems of the simpler forms; and hence 
it came about that inquiry, as it went on, 
grew more and more limited to the former. 
But an increasing knowledge of the laws 
of life as exemplified in the differentiated 
phenomena of the mammal is increasingly 
fitting us for a successful attack on the more 
general phenomena of the lowly creatures 
possessing little more than that molecular 
organization, if such a phrase be permitted, 
which alone supplies the conditions for the 
manifestation of vital activities. And, 
though it may be true that in all periods 
men have from time to time labored at this 
theme, I think that I am not wrong in say- 
ing that the last dozen years or so mark a 
distinct departure both as regards the num- 
ber of researches directed to it, and also, 
what is of greater moment, as regards the 
definiteness and clearness of the results 
thereby obtained. One has only to look at 
the results recorded in the valuable treatises 
of Verworn and Biedermann, whether ob- 
tained by the authors themselves or by 
others, to feel great hope that in the im- 
mediately near future a notable advance will 
be made in our grasp of the nature of that 
varying collection of molecular conditions, 
potencies and changes, slimy hitherto to 
the intellectual no less than to the physical 
touch, which we are in the habit of de- 
noting by the more or less magical word 
protoplasm. And, perhaps, one happy fea- 
ture of such an advance will be one step in 
the way of that reintegration which men of 
science fondly hope may ultimately follow 
the differentiation of studies now so fierce 
and attended by many ills; in the prob- 
lems of protoplasm the animal physiologist 
SCIENCE. 
[N. 8. Vou. VI. No. 147. 
touches hands with the botanist, and both 
find that under different names they are 
striving towards the same end. 
Closely allied to and, indeed, a part of 
the above line of inquiry is the study of the 
physiological attributes of the cell and of 
their connection with its intrinsic organ- 
ization. This is a study which, during the 
last dozen years, has borne no mean fruits ; 
but itis an old study, one which has been 
worked at from time to time, reviving again 
and again as new methods offered new op- 
portunities. Moreover, it will probably 
come directly before us in our sectional 
work, and, therefore, I will say nothing 
more of it here. 
Still another striking feature of the past 
dozen years has been the advance of our 
knowledge in regard to those events of the 
animal body which we have now learned 
to speak of as ‘internal secretion.’ This 
knowledge did not begin in this period. 
The first note was sounded long ago in the 
middle of the century, when Claude Ber- 
nard made known what he called ‘ the gly- 
cogenic function of the liver.’ Men, too, 
were busy with the thyroid body and the 
suprarenal capsules long before the meet- 
ing of the British Association at Montreal. 
But it was since then, namely in 1889, that 
Minkowski published his discovery of the 
diabetic phenomena resulting from the total 
removal of the pancreas. That, I venture 
to think, was of momentous value, not only 
as a valuable discovery in itself, but espe- 
cially, perhaps, in confirming and fixing our 
ideas as to internal secretion, and in encour- 
aging further research. 
Minkowski’s investigation possessed this 
notable feature, that it was clear, sharp and 
decided, and, moreover, the chief factor, 
namely sugar, was subject to quantitative 
methods. The results of removing the 
thyroid body had been to a large extent 
general, often vague, and in some cases un- 
certain ; so much so as to justify, to a cer- 
