572 RECENT ADVANCES IN SCIENCE BEARING ON MEDICINE. 



making publications, and how greatly I prized the personal friendship 

 which he extended toward me. In truth, the lessons that I received 

 from him in his laboratory — a very modest one according to present 

 conditions — and the introduction to his work which I owe to him form one 

 of the pleasantest and most lasting recollections of my visit to Ken- 

 sington. The most competent witness of Huxley's earliest period of 

 development, Professor Foster, presented in the first of these lectures 1 

 a picture of tbe rapidly increasing extension of the biological knowl- 

 edge which musthaveexcited not only our admiration but also the emula- 

 tion of all who study medicine. Upon me the duty is incumbent of 

 incorporating with this presentment the newer strides of knowledge 

 and of stating their influence upon the art of healing. So great a task 

 is this that it would be presumptuous even to dare to attempt its accom- 

 plishment in a single lecture. I have decided, therefore, that I must 

 confine myself to merely sketching the influence of biological discov- 

 eries upon medicine. In this way, also, will the example of Huxley be 

 most intelligible to us. I must here make a confession. When I tried 

 to ascertain how much time would be required to deliver my lecture as 

 I had prepared it, I found, to my regret, that its delivery would occupy 

 nearly double the time assigned to me. I had therefore to reduce it to 

 about half of its original dimensions. This could only be done by means 

 of very heroic cuts, seriously damaging in more than one place my 

 chain of ideas. If, therefore, you should find, gentlemen, that my 

 transitions from one point to the other occasionally are of a somewhat 

 sudden and violent character, I trust you will bear with me and remem- 

 ber that, if you should take the trouble of reading my address after- 

 ward, you will be less shocked than you maybe to-day by my statements 

 when they appear in print. 



THE BEGINNINGS OF BIOLOGY. 



Huxley himself, though trained in the practical school of Charing 

 Gross Hospital, won his special title to fame in the domain of biology. 

 As a matter of fact, at that time even the name of biology had not 

 come into general use. It was only recently that the idea of life itself 

 obtained its full significance. Even in the late Middle Ages it had not 

 sufficient strength to struggle through the veil of dogmatism into the 

 light. I am glad to be able to-day for the second time to credit the 

 English nation with the service of having made the first attempts to 

 define the nature and character of life. It was Francis Glisson who, 

 following expressly in the footsteps of Paracelsus, investigated the 

 principium vitce. If he could not elucidate the nature of life, he at least 

 recognized its main characteristic. This is what he was the first to 

 describe as " irritability," the property on which the energy of living 



1 This lecture by Prof. Michael Foster is reprinted in the Smithsonian Report for 

 1896, pages 339-364. 



