678 



SCIENCE. 



[N. S. Vol. XVllI. No. 40.") 



and discovery by the iiiici-oscopes of seventy 

 years ago, it is hard to imagine where biol- 

 ogy woiild stand to-day. For two genera- 

 tions every biologist has been accustomed 

 to think in terms of the cell theory. Every 

 shred of the body he knows as an intricate 

 intei-lacement, embodying cooperation and 

 mutual support of associate thousands of 

 individually existent cells. Division of 

 labor has gone on, and with it differentia- 

 tion of structure ; while this group of cells 

 combines with its own inner life some spe- 

 cial function subservient to the needs of the 

 great commonwealth as a whole, another 

 group is specialized for another duty again 

 subservient to the general needs. Each 

 organism, however complete its solidarity, 

 each 'one of ourselves here, is built up of 

 living myriads. Each such organism con- 

 sisted at its outset of but a single cell, and 

 from that in his life's growth have arisen 

 the countless myriads composing him to- 

 day. The blood relationship is close be- 

 tween all the cells of each individual body. 

 The cells of our nerves, of our muscles, of 

 our lime-hardened bones are all blood rela- 

 tions through one common ancestor. Yet 

 so far has specialization of these unit lives 

 gone on, so far does function reflect itself in 

 microscopic form, that there is greater like- 

 ness between my nerve-cells and the nerve- 

 cells of a fish than between my nerve-cells 

 and my own muscle-cells— despite the blood 

 relationship between these latter. And in 

 the commonwealth of cells that constitute 

 each one of us, goes forward day long, 

 night long, as in the body politic, the 

 birth of new units to replace the ones out- 

 worn, the subordination of many individual 

 purposes to one, the sacrifice and destruc- 

 tion of the individual life for the benefit 

 of the many. 



Trained in study of such an organism, 

 surely the biologist and the medical man 

 will be the last to underrate the importance 

 of organization to the community for the 



common weal. Therefore I am i-ejoiced, 

 but I am not surprised, that it is your fac- 

 ulty of medicine which to-day, in its public- 

 spiritedness, erects and instals these fine 

 laboratories, this potent addition to the 

 organization of your community, for its 

 activities in medicine and biological science. 

 I would also, as a friend among you, offer 

 you my congratulations on the consolida- 

 tion of your two schools of medicine. 

 Union means not only greater strength, 

 but the more effective application of 

 that strength. 



I need not to this assembly extol medi- 

 cine. Many of her votaries are here; I 

 venture to count myself as one. But to-day 

 the relation toward her of education is a 

 matter on which our minds are naturally 

 set. Am I wrong if in regard to this it 

 rises saliently to me that from the edu- 

 cational standpoint medicine, like Janus of 

 old, in a good sense, bears a double face? 

 On the one hand, she is an empiric. She 

 has learned to cure by what the compara- 

 tive psychologist calls the 'method of trial 

 and error..' Her conquests over sickness 

 were acquired purely as result of experi- 

 ence, without help either from a priori or 

 from inductive reasoning. And great and 

 glorious is the role of her achievement on 

 these lines. Of her humanitarian tri- 

 umphs probably still— certainly until a 

 generation ago— the greater share is as- 

 signable to this part. The use of quinine 

 in malaria, the curative effects of the 

 iodides and various metals, the discovery of 

 chloroform and ether as anesthetics, these 

 and the names of a long line of famous 

 physicians from the renaissance down to 

 some as justly famous as the past, and 

 with i;s now to-day, suffice to certify the 

 inestimable gifts that medicine as empiric 

 has given to mankind in his suffering. This 

 face of medicine may well wear a garland. 



In her other aspect, medicine is not an 

 empiric, but a scientist. Who will refute 



