SELECTIVE ACTION 



301 



of strychnine # was of immeasurable value, not so 

 much because it gave the doctors a "more generous 

 cardiac," though that was a great gift, but because 

 it revealed the selective action of drugs. Contrast 

 his account of strychnine with Ambroise Pares 

 story how they tested the bezoar-stone on the thief 

 instead of hanging him ; contrast Bernard's chapter 

 on curari with Dr Scarbrugh's notes on the King's 

 death, with all the Crown jewels inside him : you 

 are in two different worlds. The selective action 

 of drugs — the affinity between strychnine and the 

 central nerve-cells, between curari and the terminal 

 filaments of the motor nerves — that was the 

 revolutionary teaching of science : and it came, 

 not by experience, but by experiment. 



Take Professor Fraser's address on " The 

 Action of Remedies, and the Experimental 

 Method," at the International Medical Congress 

 in London, 1881 : — 



" The introduction of this method is due to 

 Bichat ; and, by its subsequent application by 

 Magendie, pharmacology was originated as the 

 science we now recognise. Bichat represents a 

 transition state, in which metaphysical concep- 

 tions were mingled with the results of experience. 

 Magendie more clearly recognised the danger of 

 adopting theories, in the existing imperfections of 

 knowledge ; and devoted himself to the supplement- 

 ing of these imperfections by experiments on living 



* For a full statement of the great value of this study of 

 strychnine, see CI. Bernard, Lecons de Physiologie Operatoire, 

 1879, p. 89. 



