1893.] Pathology among Biological Studies. 



119 



neously with those of his more celebrated colleague ; hut the brilliancy 

 of Harvey's discoveries was so great that the light which shone from 

 Glisson's work-table almost disappeared. I rejoice that on so auspicious 

 an occasion I may recall the memory of the modest investigator, and 

 may offer him the tribute of gratitude which science ought long 

 since to have awarded to him. 



When, thirty-five years ago, I published my little essay on 

 " Irritation and Irritability " (' Archiv fur Pathologische Anatomie 

 und Physiologie,' 1858, vol. xiv, p. 1), I did not know much more about 

 Glisson than what every student of medicine learns, namely, that 

 there is in the liver a " capsula communis Glissonii," and, what was 

 even less known, that this anatomist had written a small work on 

 ' Rachitis,' which, indeed, was the first of its kind. In my own paper 

 on this disease (ibid., 1853, vol. v, p. 410) I had tried to demonstrate 

 the circumspection and accuracy which are noticeable in this book, 

 and which make it a typical model for all collective investigations ; 

 bat even at that time I overlooked the fact that this was only the 

 smallest merit of this wonderful man. It was only in the further 

 course of my studies on the history of the doctrine of irritation and 

 irritability that I made the discovery, astonishing to me, that the 

 idea of irritability did not, as is generally thought, originate with 

 Haller, but that the father of modern physiology, and the Leyden 

 School in which he had been brought up, had borrowed this idea from 

 Glisson. I then stumbled on a series of almost forgotten publications 

 of this original scholar, especially his ' Tractatus de natura substan- 

 tias energeticas, seu de vita naturae ejusque tribus primis facultatibus, 

 perceptiva, appetitiva et motiva,' which appeared in London in 1672, 

 wherein the ideas were further worked out, the outlines of 

 which had already been brought forward in his ' Anatomia hepatis,' 

 published in 1654. In this work (p. 400) the newly-coined word 

 " irritabilitas " appears, so far as I can find out, for the first time in 

 literature. It may be noticed, by the way, that the expression 

 " irritatio " is much older. I find it already in Celsus, but with an 

 exclusively pathological signification. It appears, also, occasionally 

 in later writers, and to this day it has not, speaking accurately, lost 

 this original signification. It is otherwise with Glisson ; to him, 

 irritability is a physiological property, and irritation merely a 

 process of life dependent on the natural faculties of living matter. 



Thus he was led, through a process of " contemplation," to main- 

 tain the existence of the " biarchia," the "principium vitas," or the 

 "biusia," the "vita substantialis vel vitas substantia." And in order 

 to allow of no misunderstanding as to the source of his " contempla- 

 tion," he adds distinctly that this is the " archasus " of Yan Helmont 

 — the "vis plastica" of plants and animals. 



In the further course of his philosophical discussions, he is betrayed, 



