1893.] 



Pathology among Biological Studies. 



129 



living elements, the new science of biology Las sprung up. It lias 

 not brought us the solution of the ultimate riddle of life, but it has 

 provided concrete, material, anatomical objects for investigation, the 

 structures and active and passive properties of which we can analyse. It 

 has put an end to the wild confusion of fantastic and arbitrary notions 

 such as I have just mentioned ; it has placed in a strong light the 

 immeasurable importance of anatomy, even in the most delicate con- 

 ditions of the body, and lastly, it has made us aware of the close 

 similarity of life in the highest and lowest organisms, and has thus 

 afforded us invaluable means for comparative investigation. 



Pathology has also its place, and one certainly not without honour, 

 in this science of biology, for to pathology we are indebted for the 

 knowledge that the opposition between healthy and diseased life is not 

 to be sought in a fundamental difference of the two lives, not in an 

 alteration of the essence, but only in an alteration of the conditions. 



Pathology has been released from the anomalous and isolated posi- 

 tion which it had occupied for thousands of years. By applying its 

 revelations not only to diseases of man, but also to those of animals, 

 even the smallest and lowest, and to those of plants, it in the best 

 manner helps to strengthen biological knowledge, and to narrow still 

 more that region of the unknown which still surrounds the intimate 

 structure of living matter. It is no longer merely applied physio- 

 logy ; it has become physiology itself. 



Nothing has more contributed thereto than the constant scientific 

 union which has endured for more than three hundred years between 

 English and German investigators, and to which to-day we add yet 

 another link. May this union never be broken ! 



VOL. LIII. 



K 



