INAUGURAL ALURLSH. 
m7 
kind it may bo, to be of any value must be worked for. 
It cannot be transmitted from one person to another; in fact, 
four fifths of what you may accumulate during life will go 
with you when vou die. Others will have to work for it, as 
you did before them. 
Supposing that you have become acquainted with the 
structure, functions, and composition of the animal frame, it 
is also important that you should have a knowledge of de¬ 
velopment, growth, and nourishment. This department of 
physiology has an important bearing on the study of dis¬ 
eases, and the means of acquiring such information appears 
to be comparatively easy. The formation of the embryo, its 
growth and permanent nutrition, depend pretty much upon 
cells; it is so in the vegetable as also in the animal kingdom. 
We may here find an aid to our study, viz., by referring to 
vegetable physiology. We must also consider the multi¬ 
plication of parts, their change of form, and composition; 
and to understand the latter we have again to call in the aid 
of chemistry. 
I will now* direct your attention to Pathology. I have 
briefly stated that physiology treats of the living animal in 
an ideal state of perfection. On the other hand, pathology 
professes to explain all phenomena furnished by the body 
in disease; and it is the duty of the pathologist to interpret 
the changes it undergoes. The common observer may be 
quite able to say “ this is a soft liver,” “ this mucous mem¬ 
brane is very red,” “such muscles are wasted,” “such a lung 
is studded with abscesses,” or, on the other hand, it “is hard 
and heavy,” or “the cornea,” or “lens of such an eye is 
opaque,” but because he can do all this he is not therefore 
a pathologist. He does not explain the cause or the law's 
w hich govern the existence of these changes. 
The first duty of the pathologist is to interpret the facts 
of disease, which interpretations are founded upon the ana¬ 
logies of health. This must appear so clear as to enable 
him to point out their contrast to healthy action; therefore, 
to study this science to advantage, a know ledge of health is 
required, and all pathological observations should be founded 
on that standard. For example, when you state that a 
“mucous membrane is red,” you mean that it is redder than 
a healthy mucous membrane. Or if you say a “liver is 
softened,” you mean that it is soft as compared w r ith a 
healthy liver. In this way you would go on expressing the 
phenomena of disease by a healthy standard. To understand 
one you must know the other, and thus, you see, physiology, 
or the science of life in health, and pathology, or the science 
