920 



SCIENCE. 



[N. S. Vol. V. No. 128. 



the New World, omitting mention of this long 

 unnoticed instrument (not yet described in dupli- 

 cate, to my knowledge, anywhere else in the 

 world), are unsatisfactory. The specimens at- 

 testing the interesting process, in the possession 

 of the museum of the University of Pennsyl- 

 vania, since 1895, cannot be ignored. 



H. C. Mercee. 

 Indian House, May 23, 1897. 



THE SIGNIFICANCE OF INTERNAL SECRETION. 



The communication on the above subject 

 published in Science for April 30th, by Mr. 

 Albert Mathews, seems to me not only of inter- 

 est, but of importance, because it indicates in a 

 comprehensive way some of the directions in 

 which our thoughts may move just now to ad- 

 vantage. Views not wholly unlike these of 

 Mr. Mathews are hinted at in my ' Animal 

 Physiology ' (1889); but it has been especially in 

 lectures to my most advanced class in physi- 

 ology that, for ten years, I have been accus- 

 tomed to insist on the bearing of the function 

 of one part on that of another — a subject gen- 

 erally neglected in the books — and also the re- 

 lation of the development of one tissue or organ 

 as determined by another. Necessarily it was 

 impossible, till more recent discoveries had 

 been made, to indicate many of the ways in 

 which this is brought about, and even yet we 

 can do so but vaguely. 



It was very natural, therefore, for me to has- 

 ten to read Mr. Mathews' communication to my 

 class and to enforce its teaching by comparison 

 with similar expressions of opinion in a paper 

 entitled 'Experimental Cachexia Strumipriva,' 

 published in the Canadian Practitioner in October 

 (?) 1895. I venture to think that Mr. Mathews 

 will find in this paper views as broad as his 

 own, if not more so. To quote a single sentence: 

 " No cell is so small, so distant from others, but 

 that in some way it makes itself felt, and this 

 is to me the most important lesson of all this 

 recent development in physiology and medicine 

 growing out of the study of the total or partial 

 extirpation of organs, of transplantation, of 

 feeding of glands, etc." The extension of the 

 principle of the influence of the internal secre- 

 tion to plants is admirable, in my opinion, and 

 in this I am inclined to believe that Mr. 



Mathews is entirely original. However, while 

 Mr. Mathews' views are broad they are apt, 

 if taken alone, to lead to narrowness by their 

 very exolusiveness. When he seeks to explain 

 the co-ordinated life of plants in this way does he 

 also remember the j>rotoplasinic continuum, and 

 when he would explain by internal secretion 

 the co-ordination in movement, say, of one cell 

 with another in simple invertebrates does he 

 bear in mind the possibility of explanation 

 through molecular impact 1 Life implies cease- 

 less molecular movement. Just now we are 

 witnessing, in the medical world, the most re- 

 markable development of chemical conceptions 

 to explain pathological conditions that has yet 

 taken place, but, as usual, with a narrowness that 

 is evidence of the evil effects as well as the ad- 

 vantages of specialization. The doctrine of 

 ' pangens ' has always seemed to me a crude and 

 unnecessary hypothesis, and I cannot believe 

 that internal secretion alone will supply an ade- 

 quate substitute, though it will assist to a better 

 understanding of certain results in detail. 



Nearly ten years ago I put forward a view in 

 a paper entitled ' A Physiological Basis for an 

 Improved Cardiac Pathology ' {Medical Record, 

 October 22, 1887), which, so far as I know, was 

 then set forth for the first time in print, though 

 it had been earlier taught in my lectures. This 

 conception was more fully elaborated in ' The 

 Influence of the Nervous System on Cell Life.' 

 {New York Medical Journal, December 22, 1888.) 



I endeavored to show that we were justified 

 in holding that the nervous system exercised a 

 constant influence over all cells, tissues and 

 organs, either directly or indirectly, in every 

 animal provided with such a system, this in- 

 fluence being the more important the higher the 

 animal in the scale of existence. This theory of 

 the constant influence of the nervous system 

 over metabolism, etc., has, so far as I am 

 aware, not been recognized or, at all events, 

 taught by anyone except myself, till it was 

 prominently brought forward last October by 

 Professor M. Foster, the well-known physiolo- 

 gist, in his admirable Huxley lecture. It has 

 since been publicly espoused by the distin- 

 guished neurologist Gowers, and will, I have 

 no doubt, shortly receive the recognition which 

 I have long felt it deserved. 



