102 
tributed to the happiness and welfare of mankind 
in proportion as it has been pursued by its own 
methods, for its own ends, by its own disciples. As 
regards physiology, this is strikingly illustrated by a 
comparison of the value to medicine of the gradua- 
tion theses of Parisian and German medical students. 
As probably you all know, a candidate for the doc- 
torate of medicine in those countries, as in many 
schools here, must present a graduation thesis on 
some subject connected with his studies. Every year 
a certain number select a physiological topic. ‘The 
French student usually picks out some problem 
which appears to havé a direct bearing on the diag- 
nosis or treatment of disease, while the German very 
often takes up some physiological matter which on 
the surface has nothing to do with medicine. Now, 
any one who will carefully compare for a series of 
years the graduation theses in physiology, of German 
and French candidates, will discover that even the 
special practical art of medicine itself is to-day far 
more indebted to the purely scientific researches of 
the German students than to those of: the French, 
undertaken with a specific practical end in view. 
Situated as we shall be here, in close relation to a 
medical school, and yet not a part of it, I believe we 
shall be under the best possible conditions for work. 
Not under too direct pressure of the influence of the 
professional staff and students, on the one hand, on 
the other we shall be kept informed and on the alert 
as to problems in medicine capable of solution by 
physiological methods. 
I must find time to say a few words as to the con- 
nection of physiology with pathology and therapeu- 
tics. ‘The business of the physiologist being to gain 
a thorough knowledge of the properties and functions 
of every tissue and organ of the body, he has always 
had for his own purposes to place these tissues under 
abnormal conditions. To know what a muscle ora 
gland is, he has to study it not merely in its normal 
condition, but when heated or cooled, supplied with 
oxygen or deprived of it, inflamed or starved, and 
see how it behaves under the influence of curari, 
atropine, and other drugs. From the very start of 
physiological laboratories, a good deal of the work 
done in them has necessarily been really experimental 
pathology and experimental therapeutics. I suppose 
to-day that at least half of the work published from 
physiological laboratories might be classed under one 
or other of these heads. And what has been the fruit? 
I can here refer only to one or two examples. It is not 
too much to say, that, though inflammation is the com- 
monest and earliest recognized of pathological states, 
we really knew nothing about it until the experi- 
mental researches of Lister, Virchow, and Cohnheim; 
and that all we really know as to the nature of fever is 
built on the similar researches of Bernard, Haidenhain, 
Wood, and others. As to therapeutics, so far as giv- 
ing doses of medicine is concerned, it, still in its very 
infancy, had its birth as an exact science in physi- 
ological laboratories. Every modern text-book on the 
subject gives an account of the physiological action 
of each drug. What the future may have in store for 
us by pursuit of these inquiries it is hard to limit. 
SCIENCE. 
The work of Bernard, — showing that in curari we 
had adrug that would pick out of the whole body, and 
act upon, one special set of tissues, the endings of the 
nerve-fibres in muscle,— and the results of subsequent 
exact experiments as to the precise action of many 
drugs upon individual organs or tissues, hold out be- 
fore us a hope that perhaps at no very distant day the 
physician will know exactly, and in detail, what every 
drug he puts into his patient is going to do in him. 
Pathology and therapeutics, while almost essential 
branches of physiological inquiry, have nevertheless 
their own special aims; and, now that the physiolo- 
gists have proved that it is possible to study these 
subjects experimentally, special laboratories for their 
pursuit are being erected in Germany, France, and 
England. These laboratories are stocked with physi- 
ological instruments, and carry on their work by 
physiological methods. Those who guide them, and 
those who work in them, must be trained physiolo- 
gists: if not, the whole business often degenerates 
into a mere slicing of tumors and putting up of 
pickled deformities: pathological anatomy is a very 
good and important thing in itself, but it is not pa- 
thology. Looking at the vast field of pathological and 
therapeutic research open to us, and bearing in mind 
the certainty of the rich harvest for mankind which 
will reward those who work on it, I regard as one 
of my chief duties here to prepare in sound physi- 
ological doctrine, and a knowledge of the methods 
of experiment, students who will afterwards enter 
laboratories of experimental pathology and _ phar- 
macology immediately connected with our medical 
school. 
If the relations of the biological sciences to medicine 
be such as I have endeavored to point out, what place 
should they occupy in the medical curriculum? 
That men fitted for research, and with opportunity 
to pursue it, should be trained to that end, is all well 
and good; but how about the ninety per cent who 
want simply to become good practitioners of medi- 
cine ? What relation is this laboratory to hold to 
such men, who may come to it, intending afterwards 
to enter amedical school? As apart of their general 
college-training, of that education of a gentleman 
which every physician should possess, it should give 
them specially a thorough training in the general laws 
which govern living matter, without troubling them 
with the minutiae of systematic zoology or botany; it 
should enable them to learn how to dissect, and make 
them well acquainted with the anatomy of, one of the 
higher animals; it should teach them how to use a 
miscroscope, and the technique of histology, and 
finally, by lectures, demonstration, and experiment, 
make known to them the broad facts of physiology, 
the means by which those facts have been ascertained, 
and the sort of basis oh which they rest. The man 
so trained, while obtaining the mental culture which 
he would gain from the study of any other science, is 
specially equipped for the study of medicine. Trained , 
in other parts of his general collegiate course to speak 
and write his own language correctly, having acquired 
a fair knowledge of mathematics and Latin, able to 
read at least French and German, having learned the 
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[Vor. IIL, No. 61, 
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