122 



Prof. Rudolf Virchow. The Posiiion of [Mar. 16, 



ing to some chief trait, which stands out in a commanding manner 

 from the general picture. This is the practical difficulty. 



With it, however, a theoretical difficulty is very often combined. 

 The human mind, owing to a natural impulse, seeks in the phenomena 

 indications of their determining cause. The more complex the 

 phenomenon, the more busy is the imagination, in order to convert 

 it into a simple one, and to find for it a unitary cause. So has it 

 been in respect to life, so also in respect to disease. The course of 

 thought followed by Glisson is opposed to such an explanation. He 

 had no scruple in dividing the unit of life into a large number of 

 individual lives. Although the knowledge we now possess of the 

 arrangements of the body was absolutely foreign to him, yet he arrived 

 quite logically at the vita propria, the proper elementary life, of the 

 several parts. To be sure, this expression, as far as I can see, is not 

 to be found in his works, and occurs first in those of Gaubius ; but 

 Glisson says distinctly : # " Quod vivit per se vivit vitam a nulla 

 creatura praster se ipsum dependentem. Hoc enim verba vivere per 

 se sonant." 



The unitary efforts of the following period relentlessly passed 

 over the tendency of which I have just spoken. Some returned to 

 the old Mosaic dictum, "the life of the flesh is in the blood " ; others 

 gave the nervous system, and the brain especially, the first place in 

 their consideration. Thus once more began the old struggle, which 

 for thousands of years had divided the schools of medicine into 

 humoral and solid ar pathology. Even when we ourselves entered on 

 scientific work, haBmato-pathologists stood in hostile attitude to neuro- 

 pathologists. 



In England, humoral pathology found a strong support in the great 

 and legitimate authority of John Hunter. Although this distinguished 

 practitioner never shared the one-sidedness of the later pathologists, 

 but rather attributed to the solid parts the living principle the exist- 

 ence of which he assumed, yet, in his investigations, the blood took 

 precedence over all other parts as the chief vehicle of life. 



One must, however, recall to mind that Hunter laid special stress 

 on the fact that life and organisation are not bound to each other, 

 since animal substances which are not organised can possess life. 

 He started, as has already been noticed, from the erroneous conception 

 that eggs are not organised, and that it was not till after incubation 

 that the first act of organisation, namely, the formation of vessels, 

 took place. He considered his "diffuse matter" ("materia vitse 

 diffusa ") as the actual carrier of life ; and this was to be met with not 

 only in the solid parts, but in the blood also. This matter, according to 

 him, existed in the brain in a remarkable degree of concentration, but 



* G-Hssod, ' Anatomia hepatis/ "Ad lectorem," N. 17. 



