VI 



Anatomy, was accomplished. It resembles the contemporary edition 

 of Quai 1 " and Sharpey in including both general and special anatomy, 

 and in wie way in which the illustrations are interwoven with the 

 text ; but exceeded it in their number and quantity. To the most 

 difficult part of descriptive anatomy, that which relates tc the central 

 organs of the nervous system and to the viscera, Henle devoted many 

 years of labour, and produced a result which had never before been 

 approached. The magnum opus was brought to a conclusion in 1873, 

 but inasmuch as by the time the first editioti was completed, the third 

 was already in progress, it continued to the end to be an increasing 

 occupation, the labour of which was further enhanced by the obliga- 

 tion to which the requirements of medical education forced upon him, 

 of publishing a text-book and copious atlas for students — a com- 

 pendium of the larger work. 



The " Handbook " did not of course profess to contain a record of 

 researches. It was in its end and construction a system. But daring 

 the whole course of its publication, the author was continuously 

 engaged in the work of investigation. The research on the anatomy 

 of the kidneys, in connexion with which subject his name is most 

 familiar to English students of medicine, appeared in 1862 in the 

 Transactions of the Gottingen Academy ; those on the histology of 

 the central nervous system in 1867-68. More recently he published 

 two important researches on his old subject, the minute anatomy of 

 the eye (1878 and 1882) ; and finally in November, 1884, his last 

 anatomical research, "Das Wachsthum des Menschlichen Nagel und 

 des Pferdehufes." 



To judge of Henle as a pathologist, reference must be made to his 

 systematic work on that subject already mentioned, the fundamental 

 idea of which is, that disease consists essentially in the reaction of 

 the living material against " abnormal external action," and that the 

 nature of this reaction differs in no respect, excepting the circum- 

 stances under which it is evoked or induced, from those which exhibit 

 themselves in the healthy body in its relation to its normal environ- 

 ment, so that, as Henle expressed it, " physiology and pathology are 

 branches of the same science." The notion expressed in these words, 

 incontrovertible as it may appear now, was opposed to the teaching 

 of the time, which in physiology preferred to inquire into the purpose 

 rather than the cause of vital phenomena, and resented as a desecra- 

 tion every attempt to refer them to chemical or physical actions ; and 

 in pathology spoke of diseases as if they were mischievous personalities 

 whose intentions it was the business of the physician to aid the 

 " Schiitzender Geist " in discovering and frustrating. Against all 

 such notions Henle made uncompromising war, by showing even 

 with the imperfect knowledge and means possessed in 1840, that it 

 was possible to discover the causes of many diseases, not in intestine 



