( XXV ) 



great operation, performed not only without pain, but without the loss 

 of a single drop of blood." 



But it is certain that, until a broader and more searching lighit is 

 shed on human biology, Curative medicine must continue related to an 

 enlightened empiricism, though it may be hoped that that relation will 

 be more and more remote. But Preventive medicine — that great out- 

 come of the study of the combination of physical influences with vital 

 results — will largely advance with every true observation of these 

 influences on all the phenomena of life, whether in health or disease. 



It is now many years ago since the late Dr. Eobert Graves proposed 

 that the different governments of Europe, America, and India, should 

 establish and endow corresponding Medical observatories, supplied 

 with every requisite for recording the advance of epidemic and 

 sporadic disease, in connexion Avith the meteorological, atmospheric, 

 and telluric conditions of the time, together with those of the physical 

 state of the population, its longevity and its mortality. 



In this way, a great advance in the study of Preventive medicine 

 might be anticipated, though we cannot hold that every aberration from 

 health is due to preventible causes ; for who shall indicate the results 

 or the origin of conditions that may be long hereditary ? 



Yet, notwithstanding all our researches and discoveries of additional 

 laws, physical and vital, all that we have learned of the conservation and 

 transmutation of energy brought about by a living being, in the words 

 of Professor Stuart, "we should find that the. physical antecedent of 

 the phenomena was, probably, a much less transmutation ; while, again, 

 the antecedent of this would, probably, be found still less ; and so on, 

 as far as we could trace it. But, with all this, we do not pretend to 

 have discovered the true nature of life itself, or even that of its rela- 

 tion to the material universe. In fine," he says, "we have not suc- 

 ceeded in solving the problem as to the true nature of Life, but have 

 only driven the difficulty into a border land of thick darkness, into 

 which the light of knowledge has not yet been able to penetrate." 

 Speaking of the difference of animals and inanimate machines, he 

 observes that while the latter requires for its sustenance only some 

 variety of chemical separation ; the other — the living being — must 

 be supplied with organised tissue. After speaking of the sun as 

 the source of energy, and of the future of our race depending on its 

 future, he concludes : 



*■' But here, at length, we come to matters beyond our grasp, for 



K. I. A., MINUTES, SESSION 1874-75. d 



