620 
PROFESSOR W ILSON’S 
millstones which, from their composition of alternate layers of 
dense enamel, less dense ivory, and least dense crusta petrosa, 
always present the conditions favourable for grinding, namely, 
a rough surface; millstones which, unlike those hewn from the 
rock by the hand of man, continue to rise to their original level 
as fast as they are worn away by use, which grow during the 
whole life of the animal, advancing from the posterior parts of 
the sockets of the jaws as they are worn away by friction in 
front; that design which, to move the enormous jaws in which 
these teeth are imbedded, and at the same time to sustain their 
prodigious weight, has separated the two tables of the skull to an 
extraordinary extent, in order to furnish surface for the attach- 
ment of large and powerful muscles; which still further, to pro- 
vide for the weight of the head, has placed it near the shoulders 
of the animal, almost over the two stout pillars which support 
the anterior part of the colossal trunk of his body, instead of at- 
taching it to the extremity of a lever, as in the horse or giraffe, 
where, once lowered to the grass, it seems to defy the creature’s 
strength to raise it ; and which, to compensate for this shortness of 
neck that deprives the animal of the means of cropping the ver- 
dure of its native plains, like other herbivorous quadrupeds, has 
created an organ which combines strength with rapidity and pli- 
ancy of movement, and which is at once an arm, a hand, a drink- 
ing-cup, and a weapon of deadly force. I select this out of the 
thousand examples that anatomy spreads before us, because it 
was a favourite illustration of one who not long since stood upon 
these boards, but who has now departed from among us ; who has 
left the instances of heavenly design so richly crowded around 
us as to enable us to read in the great volume of Omniscience 
the secret laws which direct the principles of design and govern 
the universe; one who was known and valued by many around 
me, and to whose memory even they to whom he may have been 
known only by his works will not refuse a sigh consecrated to a 
great man and an eminent physiologist, — Sir Charles Bell. 
Physiology is that part of medical science that discovers 
the uses and modes of action of the various constituents of the 
animal fabric. As anatomy is the study of the organism at rest, 
physiology pursues its varied phenomena of activity. It teaches 
us the uses and intent of the multiple forms that occur among 
the bones; the nature of the movements of the numerous joints ; 
the dynamic forces and actions of the muscles ; the hydraulic 
operations of the circulating fluids; the functions of the nervous 
system and organs of sense, and of the viscera of organic life. 
Physiology, like anatomy, may be human, or it may be compara- 
tive ; it may be general, or it may be special; it may be the phy- 
siology of health or of disease . The physiology of disease is 
