STEPHEN HALES 139 



produce an oblong shoot but rather a globose 

 one." 



It is not my place to speak of Hales' work in 

 animal physiology, nor of those researches bearing 

 on the welfare of the human race which occupied 

 his later years. Thus he wrote against the habit of 

 drinking spirits, and made experiments on ventila- 

 tion by which he benefited English and French 

 prisons, and even the House of Commons ; then 

 too he was occupied in attempts to improve the 

 method of distilling potable water at sea, and of 

 preserving meat and biscuit on long voyages.^ 



We are concerned with him simply as a vege- 

 table physiologist, and in that character his fame is 

 imperishable. Of the book which I have been 

 using as my text, namely. Vegetable Staticks, Sachs 

 says : "It was the first comprehensive work the 

 world had seen which was devoted to the nutrition 

 of plants and the movement of their sap.. ..Hales had 

 the art of making plants reveal themselves. By 

 experiments carefully planned and cunningly carried 

 out he forced them to betray the energies hidden in 

 their apparently inactive bodies."^ These words, 

 spoken by a great physiologist of our day, form a 

 fitting tribute to one who is justly described as the 

 father of physiology. 



1 See his Philosophical Experiments, 1739. 

 'GescMchte d. Botanik, p. 515 (free translation). 



