T. STE1IKY HUNT. 35-(5) 



can scarcely mislead. To speak of man's physical, that 

 is to say his natural nature, is however an evident 

 tautology. 



The word physic and its derivatives have in later 

 times undergone remarkable changes in their applica- 

 tion. We speak of physical geography, meaning the 

 natural features of the earth, of physical strength and 

 physical life, and, borrowing a French expression, we 

 call the physique of a man all that relates to the complex 

 human organism and its processes. In our text-books of 

 science, however; we find a conventional use of the word 

 physics in a far narrower sense, where it is restricted to 

 the study of the general properties of inorganic bodies, 

 and their relation to gravity, heat, light and electricity. 

 Such relations are called physical, and are distinguished 

 alike from those called chemical and others which are 

 designated as vital or organic. Yet the professor who 

 talks of physical as distinct from chemical or vital prob- 

 lems, will at the same time speak of his physical as 

 contrasted w r ith his mental condition ; referring thereby 

 not only to the activities belonging to his own domain of 

 study, but to those which concern also chemistry and 

 organic life. This same student calls himself in English 

 a physicist and in French a physician (physicien). The 

 latter w r ord in the French language had however of old 

 another meaning, and signified a teacher or a practioner 

 of the art of healing diseases, a meaning still retained in 

 our English speech, where physician and doctor of 

 physic are common terms for a practitioner of medicine 

 or a mediciner, as he was of old correctly called. The 

 origin of this use is to be sought in the wider acceptation 

 of the w^ord physic and physics by Greek and Arabian 

 students who, taking all nature for their province, w 7 ere 

 in the broadest sense of the term, physicians or natural- 

 ists, and who applied their knowledge alike of the inor- 

 ganic and the organic world, to the treatment of disease 

 and the alleviation of human suffering. It w r as Hippo- 

 crates, well named the father of medicine, who first 

 taught that the true method of preserving health and of 

 healing disease w T as to be found in the study of nature 

 in all its relations. Only those who thus practice 

 the healing art are entitled to the name of physi- 

 cians or medical physicians. It was by an easy transi- 



