RECENT PROGRESS IN PHYSIOLOGY. 451 



rigbtly consider them as but the earnest of that which is to come; and 

 those of us who are far down on the slope of life may wistfully look for- 

 ward to the next meeting of the association on these Western shores, 

 wondering what marvels will then be told. 



Physiology, even in the narrower sense to Avhich, by emphasis on the 

 wavering barrier which parts the animal from the plant, it is restricted 

 in this section, deals with many kinds of being, and with many things in 

 each. But, somewhat as man, in one aspect a tiny fragment of the world, 

 still more of the universe, in another aspect looms so great as to over- 

 shadow everything else, so the nervous system, seen from one point of 

 view, is no more than a mere part of the whole organism, but, seen from 

 another point of view, seems by its importance to swallow up all the 

 rest. As man is apt to look upon all other things as mainly subserving 

 his interests and purposes, so the physiologist, but with more justice, 

 may regard all the rest of the body as mainly subserving the welfare of 

 the nervous system; and, as man was created last, so our natural 

 knowledge of the working of that nervous system has been the latest 

 in its growth. But, if there be any truth in what I have urged to-day, 

 we are witnessing a growth which promises to be as rapid as it has 

 seemed to be delayed. Little s]3irit of prophecy is needed to foretell 

 that in the not so distant future the teacher of physiology will liurry 

 over the themes on which he now dwells so long, in order that he may 

 have time to expound the most important of all the truths which he 

 has to tell, those which have to do with the manifold workings of the 

 brain. 



And I will be here so bold as to dare to point out that this develop- 

 ment of his science must, in the times to come, influence the attitude of 

 the physiologist toward the world, and ought to influence the attitude 

 of the world toward him. I imagine that if a i)lebiscite, limited even to 

 instructed — I might almost say scientific — men, were taken at the i)resent 

 moment, it would be found that the most prevalent concej)tion of phys- 

 iology is that it is a something which is in some way an appendage to 

 the art of medicine. That physiology is, and always must be, the basis 

 of the science of healing, is so much a truism that I would not venture 

 to repeat it here were it not that some of those enemies, alike to science 

 and humanity, who are at times called antivivisectionists, and Avhose 

 zeal often outruns, not only discretion, but even truth, have quite recently 

 asserted that I think otherwise. Should such an hallucination ever 

 threaten to possess me, I should only have to turn to the little we yet 

 know of the physiology of the nervous system and remind myself how 

 great a help the results of pure physiological curiosity — 1 repeat the 

 words, pure physiological curiosity, for curiosity is the mother of 

 science — have been, alike to the surgeon and the physician, in the 

 treatment of those in some way most afflicting maladies, the diseases 

 of the nervous system. Ko, physiology is, and always must be, the 

 basis of the science of healing; but it is something more. When phys- 



