496 EVOLUTION OF MODERN SCIENTIFIC LABORATORIES. 



period. Experimental physics from the first acquired a kind of fash- 

 ionable vogue, and this aristocratic position it has ever since main- 

 tained among the experimental sciences. These sciences must concede 

 to physics that commanding position which it has won by the genius of 

 the great natural philosophers, by the precision of its methods, and the 

 mathematical accuracy of its conclusions, and by the fundamental 

 nature and profound interest and importance of its problems. The 

 debt of the medical sciences to the great experimental physicists, from 

 Kepler and Galileo and Newton down to Helmholtz, is a very large 

 one, larger than is probably appreciated by medical men who have not 

 interested themselves in the history of experimental and precise 

 methods in medicine. 



There existed in the last century cabinets of physical apparatus to 

 be used iu demonstrative lectures, but they were very inadequate, and 

 suitable rooms for experimental work scarcely existed. It was not until 

 about the middle of the present century that we find the beginnings of 

 the modern physical laboratory. Lord Kelvin, then William Thomson, 

 established a physical laboratory in the University of Glasgow about 

 1845 in an old wine cellar of a house. He tells us that "this, with the 

 bins swept away and a water supply and sink added, served as a phys- 

 ical laboratory for several years." It was as late as 1863 that Magnus 

 opened in Berlin his laboratory for experimental physical research. 

 Since 1870 there has been a rapid development of those splendid phys- 

 ical institutes which are the pride of many universities. 



Humbler, but more picturesque, was the origin of the chemical labo- 

 ratory. This was the laboratory of the alchemist searching for the 

 philosopher's stone. In the painter's canvas we can still see the vaulted, 

 cobwebbed room, with its dim and mysterious light, the stuffed serpent, 

 the shelves with their many-colored bottles, the furnace in the corner 

 with the fire glowing through the loose bricks, the fantastic alembics, 

 the old alchemist in his quaint armchair reading a huge, worm-eaten 

 folio, and the assistant grinding at the mortar. Fantastic and futile 

 as it all may seem, yet here was the birth of modern chemistry. The 

 alchemists were the first to undertake the methodical experimental 

 investigation of the chemical nature of substances. No more powerful 

 stimulus than the idea of the philosopher's stone could have been 

 devised to impel men to ardent investigation. But search for gold 

 was not all that inspired the later alchemists. Paracelsus, the alche- 

 mist, that strange but true prophet of modern medicine as he was of 

 modern chemistry, said, "Away with these false disciples who hold 

 that this divine science, which they dishonor and prostitute, has no 

 other end but that of making gold and silver. True alchemy has but 

 one aim and object, to extract the quintessence of things, and to pre- 

 X>are arcana, tinctures, and elixirs which may restore to man the health 

 and soundness he has lost." And again he says of the alchemists, 

 "They are not given to idleness nor go in a proud habit or plush or 



