RECENT ADVANCES IN SCIENCE. 345 



But in this the end in A T iew was the acquisition of facts, not training 

 in scientific conceptions and ways of thought. 



The botany, it is true, which unasked for by the College of Surgeons, 

 was insisted upon by the company of apothecaries, though made com- 

 pulsory on utilitarian grounds as an appendage to and introduction to 

 the Pharmacopoeia, did serve the student in an educational way, teach- 

 ing him how to appreciate likenesses and differences, even small ones, 

 and how to distinguish between real and superficial resemblances. But 

 the time he spent on tbis was too brief to make it — save in cases where 

 a special enthusiasm stepped in — of any notable effect. 



Of the then conditions of that biologic science which comes closest 

 to the profession of physiology, I will venture to say a few words, 

 though I will strive to curb my natural tendency to dwell on it at too 

 great a length. 



A great master — Johannes Miiller — had a few years before written a 

 great work, The Outlines of Physiology; a work which the wise physi- 

 ologist consults with profit even to-day, noting with admiration how a 

 clear strong judgment may steer its way through the dangers of the 

 unknown, and the still worse perils of the half known. A study of 

 that work teaches us the nature and extent of the advanced physiology, 

 which at that day an accomplished teacher like Wharton Jones might 

 put before an eager student like Huxley, and we may infer what the 

 ordinary teacher put before the ordinary student, each perhaps then, 

 as since, eager neither to give nor to take more than the statutory 

 minimum. 



When we look into the past of science and trace out the first bud- 

 dings of what afterwards grow to be umbrageous branches, it some- 

 times seems as if every time, and almost every year, marked an epoch ; 

 it seems as if always some one was finding out something which gath- 

 ered into greatness as the following years rolled on. But even bearing 

 this caution in mind, the end of the thirties and the beginning of the 

 forties of the present century do seem to mark a real epoch in physi- 

 ology. All along the line accurate, careful observation, quickened by 

 the rapid growtli of the cognate sciences, was taking the first steps to 

 replace by sound views the sterile discussions and scholastic disquisi- 

 tions which had hitherto formed too large a part of physiological teach- 

 ing. The first steps had been taken, but the most marked advance 

 was yet to come. 



Though the observations of Beaumont had a few years before, by 

 proving that gastric juice was a real thing, and demonstrating its prop- 

 erties, shown the nature of digestion in its true light, the older fermenta- 

 tive and other theories were not yet abandoned by all. Though the 

 conversion of starch into sugar had been recognized, and pepsin had 

 been discovered, the exact action of the digestive juices had yet to be 

 learned; that of pancreatic juice was almost unknown, and bile still 

 reigned as the king of enteric secretions. 



