No. 49S] 



PHYSIOLOGY 



415 



limits of the normal. A tissue may grow excessively, as 

 in tumors, or may waste away, and yet normal function 

 be not seriously interfered with until remote limits are 

 passed. Bacteria may live physiologically within an 

 animal body. They produce and cast off toxins, which 

 intrinsically are poisonous to the cells of their host. 

 These, however, cause a physiological production of anti- 

 toxins in the body cells. So long as the antitoxins are 

 sufficient in quantity and strength, they neutralize the 

 poisonous toxins. If the latter get the upper hand they 

 augment or depress the physiological activities of the 

 cells of the host, and we speak of the result as a perturba- 

 tion of function. The power of the organism to adapt 

 itself to changed conditions and to maintain its physi- 

 ological status is little short of marvelous. When, in 

 spite of all endeavors, the physiological status is over- 

 whelmed, then is the time for the pathologist to investi- 

 gate and the physician or the surgeon to attempt to cure. 



As in the biological sciences, so in the medical art, 

 there exists a distinction between the morphologist and 

 the physiologist, between the surgeon and the physician. 

 The surgeon is the medical morphologist. His task is to 

 remove diseased or injured tissue, to reunite separated 

 structures, to restore structure or stimulate to its restora- 

 tion, in short, to make structure normal, so that normal 

 function may follow. The physician, on the other hand, 

 is the medical physiologist. It is his endeavor to restore 

 normal function. His life-long labor is an exercise in 

 physiology. He should know his physiology as the sur- 

 geon should know his anatomy, minutely and to the last 

 degree. He should know what health is before he tries to 

 restore it. We all realize how rarely this ideal is 

 reached, and we all have experienced the dire results of 

 medical empiricism. Huxley likens nature and disease 

 to two men fighting, the doctor to a blind man with a 

 club who jumps into the melee, and strikes out right and 

 left, sometimes hitting disease and sometimes hitting 

 nature. Would not his blows be more telling if he were 

 quite sure which of the combatants were nature and which 



