anatomy and physiology. 
647 
achievements of our friends in Germany, who are now hold¬ 
ing their own scientific assembly at Leipsic. I find it more 
agreeable and more encouraging to look forwards than to 
look back, for although we English physiologists must admit 
with regret that we have had very little to do with the un¬ 
precedented development of our science during the last two 
decades, we do not intend to continue in the same inactive 
condition in future. Considering that the purpose of our 
meeting in this room is to promote the progress of physio¬ 
logy, I do not think I can more properly occupy your time 
than in endeavouring to show in what direction efforts must 
be made to improve its position, and particularly to secure a 
future more fruitful of substantial results than the past has 
been. I shall begin by asserting a general principle, which 
as I go on I shall endeavour to justify—that the reason why 
physiological research is less successfully pursued in England 
than we could wish it to be, lies in the general want of 
scientific education. In illustration of this position, I shall 
refer first to that higher training which is required for the 
production of scientific workers or investigators; secondly, 
to what may be called the education of public opinion by the 
popularising agency of books and lectures; and, lastly, to 
the introduction of natural science as an element of educa¬ 
tion in our great schools and universities. 
“ If a man wants to be a physiologist, he must, as things 
at present stand, study medicine. There is no logical reason 
for this; for although medicine ought to be built on physio¬ 
logy, there is no reason why a physiologist should know 
anything about the art of curing diseases. Practically, how¬ 
ever, it is the case, that the kind of education which a man 
requires in order to be a physiologist is best obtained through 
a course of medical study. I confess myself to be of the 
opinion that this close relation between medicine and physio¬ 
logy is likely to be a permanent one, on the general ground 
that any science is likely to be studied with more earnest¬ 
ness by those who have to practise an art founded upon it 
than by others. For example, in England, there can be 
little doubt that it is to our pre-eminence over all countries 
in the mechanical arts that our having greater men in the 
physical sciences on which these arts are built is due. The 
reason why the same sort of beneficial reaction of art upon 
science has not manifested itself in our own sphere is, that 
the connection between the two—that is, between physiology 
and medicine—is much less substantial. AVe physiologists 
are not yet in a position to advise the doctors, and they, rest¬ 
ing on the more reliable teaching of experience, are quite 
xly. 44 
